Dreams
by SakuNaruLover
Summary: Everyone has dreams they want to fulfil. Naruto, a boy living in Konoha, has dreams too and he is willing to do everything to fulfil them. But will he have to do everything alone or not? A story including tragedy, action and love. [NaruSaku]
1. Chapter 1

Hey everyone, this is my new story: 'Dreams'

This will be a big story. As the title gives away, the story will be about the dreams of Naruto and his friends. Are they going to accomplish them or not? You will have to read to find out;)

Naruto will be growing up from a little boy to a strong man in this story. I will begin with a prologue, in where Naruto is born. Then I will show his youth and then his genin days and so on. I won't follow the manga, but some important things will be in there. I hope that you will enjoy my story. I will continue 'together forever' too, but I just wanted to write this story too. Please review, because it means the world to me. I want to know what you think of my story and if you have something to say, don't hesitate to say it.

And this will be a NaruSaku story. It will take some chapters, before they even get to meet each other, and I will follow the manga so far that she will like Sasuke in the academy. But don't think that it will be SasuSaku. I don't like that pairing at all, so don't worry. They will get together ;) Please tell me what other pairings you would like to be in the story.

"Hello": regular talking  
_'Hello'_: thinking  
'_**Hello'**_: Inner Sakura and Kyuubi talking

Don't forget to R&R ;)

**Enjoy**

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**Prologue**

The skies were dark and sounds of agony could be heard everywhere. It wasn't one of the best days in the history of Konoha. Roofs were on fire, cries could be heard and there were dead bodies everywhere. The women and children had been brought to safety. They were hiding in the secret hideouts in the stone wall shielding Konoha. The shinobi were fighting to protect their village. Konoha had suffered so much because of the last war and lost a great deal of power.

The third shinobi war had finally stopped after a long time of fighting. Iwagakure had finally given up after one last battle. They had given everything they had left to win the last battle and they were at the winning side until one man came to the battle field. It was the man feared throughout the entire world. This man had destroyed entire armies on his own with his unmatched speed and power. The battle had been won within seconds as the legendary warrior destroyed everything in his path.

This man, now known as the fourth hokage of the village of Konoha, was standing on top of the tower of the hokage. He was watching how his people were fighting the beast that was trying to invade the village. He clenched his fist as he saw how the demon killed his friends with his breath alone. They had been fighting the monster for days now and they just couldn't kill it.

He was surprised when he heard someone approaching him and he turned around. He saw one of his best friends standing there, the white haired warrior known as Jiraiya. The white haired man in front of him had been his teacher for a long time. He was known of one of the sannin of Konoha and he had done great things in his life. The sannin was currently leading the attack against the monster from afar. He gave out the orders to the people and made the strategies.

Although he was the hokage of the village, he knew that he wasn't the best man for making important choices as these yet. He had been promoted to hokage not too long ago. The former hokage had become quite old and had decided to choose a new hokage. He had chosen him instead of one of his own students. He was really happy, because it had always been his dream to become hokage. He didn't have much experience at making decisions like this one, so he decided to let his teacher and friend make them. "What is it, Jiraiya?" The hokage asked with a sad face.

The sannin let out a big laugh and walked over to the young man. "Since when do you show me respect? Have you finally grown up?"

He saw that the young hokage was staring at the battle in front of him and he just couldn't help but see the sad expression on his face. He knew how hard he was taking this. He knew that the blonde saw it as his responsibility to keep the village safe. "You are doing everything you can, Arashi. I am sure that everyone thinks this." Jiraiya said while placing one of his hands on his shoulder.

The spiky haired man turned to the sannin and gave him a wry smile, before speaking to the man. "I just can't take it. That monster is killing one man after another. My job as hokage is to protect the people of this village, my friends. Why am I standing here, while all of my friends are dying to fight that beast?! I just can't take it anymore, sensei!" He clenched his fist and started to leave the tower.

Arashi was surprised when the white haired man blocked his way. He gave him an angry look and tried to walk past him. "Get out of the way, Jiraiya. I have to help them!"

He was surprised when he saw a fist coming his way. He didn't understand why, but somehow he didn't dodge the attack. He fell down on the ground because of the impact and gave the man in front of him a dangerous glare. Wiping away some blood at the corner of his mouth he tried to stand up. "What's the deal, you perverted fool!"

The white haired man started to laugh which infuriated the hokage even more. "Looks like you are finally falling back into your old habits, kid. You are a hokage now and a hokage needs to be wise. If you go out there now, you will only get yourself killed. That won't help anyone. Just be patient for now! The men coming back from the border will be here by tomorrow. It is our job to hold the demon off until they get here. That will be the time to strike. We have talked about this…why are you making this so hard!?"

Arashi finally stood up again and walked up to his former teacher. Stopping beside the man he started to look towards the raging battle once again. "I can't lose any more of my friends. I became hokage, so that I could protect the people important to me. I have failed too many of my friends already. Rin is now in the hospital, because I couldn't stop her from going there. I don't know what happened to Kakashi, but it can't be good, as nobody has seen him for three days now. And I have failed Obito too. He died because I was too late to help him. I won't make that mistake again!" He said while clenching his fist.

The older man sighed and put a hand on the shoulder of his former student once again. "You haven't let down anyone, Arashi. Don't think like that, you know that it will only break you. Just believe in the people down there like they believe in you. They are still fighting, because they believe in you and in the village. It is just like the old Sarutobi had told us: everyone in this village possesses a will of fire. That fire will continue to burn in the hearts of generations to come. We have to protect the village no matter what and in order to do that we will have to be patient for now. Your rash action may help that demon more than it will help us."

The man stopped for a moment to pat the man on his back. He could see that his speech was calming the young hokage next to him. "You are the strongest warrior in this village. There is no doubt about that. But even you don't stand a chance against that monster on your own. Our opponent right now is no other than the Kyuubi itself. That nine tailed bastard is known as the strongest of all the tailed beasts. Many have tried to beat this thing, but they have all failed. We will just have to outsmart that bastard."

Arashi sighed and turned to the sannin. "Thank you, I needed that. I know that it will hurt more than help to go there, but it just hurts so much to just do nothing."

Jiraiya could see that the blonde grabbed his suit at the location of his left chest. "I will wait one more day. If they aren't here by then, I will start the attack to end this once and for all. I am the only one who can stop that bastard now. I haven't been training all of these years for nothing."

The white haired man smiled and turned around. He started to walk back to the door which leads back into the tower. He knew how his former student had to be feeling. He had lost many friends because of that demon too. He didn't know where his friends were right now. The two other sannin had volunteered to fight on the front. Both of them were also known as the strongest people alive.

One of them was the beautiful blonde woman know as Tsunade. He often called her Tsunade-hime, because she was the granddaughter of the first hokage. The blonde woman was able to cure almost any wound and she was the strongest kunoichi alive. The other was Orochimaru. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but he saw the pale man as his best friend. He didn't know why, but his friend was acting weird since Arashi had been chosen to be the fourth. He just hoped that he would have the chance to talk to him about it. _'Please be okay, you guys…'_

He sighed and opened the door. He was very tired and wanted to take a quick rest. He turned around one more time to look at his friend. "Are you coming?" He asked when he saw that the man wasn't moving.

The young man turned around and raised his eyebrow. The sannin hit his own head and laughed because he knew that his former student could be a total baka at times. "Don't you have to go to your wife? I just came to see her and she is doing fine now, but it can happen any moment now. She has been asking for you the whole time. You really should go back to her." Jiraiya said with a big grin on his face.

Arashi's eyes widened and he hit his own forehead. "How could I forget about Setsuka? I am such a fool at times!" The hokage started to run and didn't even give the white haired man a glance anymore. He had totally forgotten about his wife and he knew that he was going to kill him if he didn't go down to her fast. "See you, Ero-sennin!"

The white haired man sighed and shook his head before walking through the door too while he muttered: "So damn disrespectful."

Arashi ran down stair after stair and reached his destination within seconds. He wasn't called the yellow flash for nothing. He just couldn't believe that he had been stupid enough to completely forget about her. He quickly opened the door and rushed in. He smiled when he saw that his wife was lying on a bed while breathing constantly. He walked to her with a content smile on his face. "Sorry that I am so late, Setsuka-chan." Arashi said while kissing her cheek softly.

The black haired woman gave him a smile before she changed into attacking mode. "What kept you so long, you baka! What is important enough to keep me waiting for so long! You told me that you would only be gone for a few minutes and you stay away for hours! You were just thinking about going to fight, weren't you?!"

He was surprised by the sudden explosion of the woman he loved, but he knew that he shouldn't have made her this worried. She was crying and he hated it. He felt a sharp pain in his chest and brought his hands to her cheeks. After wiping away the tears running down her cheeks with his thumbs, he leaned down and planted a kiss on her lips.

"I just can't keep anything a secret from you, can I? Don't worry, Jiraiya convinced me to stay." He said while still holding her face in his hands. He stared at her while saying his words and just couldn't believe how beautiful the woman was. Her eyes were made of the most beautiful blue he had ever seen. He could get lost in those eyes.

The woman on the bed gave the man she loved a big smile and pulled him down for another passionate kiss. She broke from the kiss after a while gasping for some air. She looked him in the eyes and saw that he was in great pain. She hated to see him like this.

"Arashi, please don't go. I don't want you to get yourself killed. You have to stay alive to lead this village. I have faith in you and in the village." Setsuka almost pleaded.

The man gave his loved one a soft smile before he turned around to leave the room again. He was about to say goodbye, when he felt her grab his cape. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the sad expression on her face. He quickly turned around and kneeled before her. "What's wrong, Setsuka-chan?" He was even more shocked when she suddenly threw her arms around his neck. She pulled him close and enjoyed the warmth of the man she loved.

She gave him a quick kiss on his forehead and moved down to look him straight in the eyes. "I have something to tell you, dear. The doctors told me that it won't be long now. You are going to be a daddy real soon now."

She let go of him now and moved on of her hands to her stomach. Tears were running down her cheeks as she was trying to continue. "I am so happy that I will finally be able to give you the child you have always wanted."

Arashi didn't understand why she was crying while saying all of these things. She should have been happy. He was lost in confusion as the woman in front of him started to talk again. "I will however not live to see our child grow up." Setsuka said with tears in her eyes.

Arashi's eyes widened as he heard the news. He wanted to scream, but Setsuka put her hand on his mouth. "The doctors have done everything they could, but they just can't stop the bleeding. They say that I have two days at the most if this goes on."

Tears were falling down the cheeks of the hokage as she spoke. "They don't know if the baby will be okay, so we need to make a choice now, dear."

He took her hands in his own and planted kisses on them. He didn't want to hear what she was going to say. He wasn't ready to lose her yet.

"If we don't get the baby out of me now, then we might lose it. The baby will die along with me if we will wait." The beautiful woman said while trying to stop crying. She wasn't doing a very good job though.

Arashi broke down crying now too. He couldn't take it anymore. He looked up to see her beautiful eyes before asking: "What will happen to you?"

The woman freed one of her hands and used it to move it through his wild hair. She closed her eyes and let out a huge sigh. "I will die because of blood loss."

Arashi opened his eyes and embraced the woman he loved. "No, this can't be! You can't leave me alone. Please don't leave me. I need you. I need you more than anything else in the world. Isn't there any other way?!" The anger and disbelief were clearly there in his voice.

The woman opened her eyes again and gave her lover a smile. "This is the only way for our baby to survive. I would have died anyway, but this way I can save our baby. I know that this will be hard on you, but you can't break down after I have passed away."

The hokage gave her a defeated and confused look before the woman continued again. "The baby and the village will still need you. I will live on in your heart forever. Don't ever forget that I will always be there with you."

Arashi couldn't stop crying anymore. He had realised his dream by becoming hokage. But it just didn't mean anything if he couldn't share his dream with the person he loved more than anything. He just couldn't live without her. Her smile, her voice, her body…he loved everything about her. He embraced her with all of his might and buried his face in her black hair.

"I am going to miss you so much! I love you so damn much!" Arashi almost screamed.

Setsuka was happy that he cared for her so much and took his head in her hands. She looked him in the eyes and smiled. "I love you too, dear. Don't ever forget that."

She moved her lips to his and gave him a kiss with passion. He deepened the kiss immediately. He didn't want this moment to end. Eventually he had to pull away to breath. She was smiling at him with that beautiful smile. "I love you!"

She fell down and screamed out in pain after those words. Arashi's eyes widened and he looked below the sheets. There was a big puddle of blood. He started to panic now. He ran outside the room and called for the doctors. They followed him in and started to work on her right away. The doctor sighed as he looked to the hokage. "I am sorry, but it is now or never. She doesn't have much time left."

Arashi panicked more and more as he grabbed the hand of his lover. He looked her in the eyes and he could see that she gave him a determined look. He knew what she wanted and turned to the doctor. "Do it."

He didn't have the strength to say any more as he turned back to Setsuka. He squeezed her hand and she gave him a smile before closing her eyes and screaming again. This would be their last moments together and he was planning to be there for her.

The doctor stood up and removed the sheets. "Get the sedatives over here fast!"

Two nurses came running into the room with a plate full of syringes and handed one to the doctor. He injected the green stuff into Setsuka and waited for the other nurse to come to him with another plate. The screaming of the black haired woman became a bit softer now, but she didn't open her eyes.

The doctor exchanged looks with the yondaime hokage. Arashi was taken back by the serious look in the eyes of the man. "This isn't going to be pretty, but we will have to cut her open. Do you want to stay?"

Arashi looked to Setsuka and saw that she was still in pain. She had opened her eyes now and the hokage could see that she was very scared too. He gave her a sweet smile. "I am going to stay with her…forever."

Setsuka was so happy after hearing those words. For a few seconds she totally forgot about the pain and gave the man she loved a true smile. The doctors asked for a scalpel and one of the nurses walked right to him and handed him one. He let out a sigh and started to place the scalpel on her stomach. She nodded and turned to Arashi. The hokage smiled at her while she smiled at him. Their eyes never left each other as Setsuka was being cut open.

Sometimes the woman let out a scream, but Arashi was there for her each time. He soothed the pain with his gaze at her and helped her throughout the operation. Suddenly the two lovers heard someone cry and they turned to the sound. Their eyes widened at what they saw. The doctor was holding a small baby boy in his hands. He had blond hair and was crying furiously. The doctor walked to the dying woman and placed the baby in her arms.

"Congratulations, it is a boy." He said before turning around and leaving to leave the three alone for a while.

The boy stopped crying the moment he saw his mother. He looked her in the eyes and started to smile. Setsuka couldn't be happier. In her arms she was holding her own son. Tears escaped her eyes as she realised that she wouldn't see the boy grow up. She wouldn't see him learn how to walk; she wouldn't see him get his first girlfriend; she wouldn't see him get married. But she was happy for this one chance with her boy. She played with his hands and to her surprise the boy grabbed her hand and put one of her fingers in his mouth.

She smiled and she started to cry again. "Arashi, come here."

The man walked over to her bed and sat down next to her. He saw his son and felt so damn proud. He looked her in the eyes when she called him. "Take your boy in your arms." She said with a smile on his face.

He didn't hesitate and took the boy in his arms. He looked so much like him, but he had his mother's eyes. "He has your eyes, Setsuka-chan." They both smiled at each other. "I want you to give him his name." The woman was surprised by this, but happy nonetheless. She let out a sigh and looked her at her son.

"Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto."

The hokage smiled at her. That name meant a lot to him. "I have met you because of ramen. I was walking to the tower of the third hokage when I suddenly saw a piece of fishcake roll on the ground (Naruto is the fishcake in ramen). I picked it up and walked into the ramen stand. I asked if someone had dropped it and you answered. I was taken by your beauty the moment I saw you. I knew then that you were the one for me."

His eyes watered now and he leaned into her to place a kiss on her lips. She deepened the kiss immediately and they only stopped because they needed to catch their breath. Arashi moved his hand through the boy's hair. "I wonder if this kid will become another ramen-freak."

They both laughed for a while until Setsuka let out a scream again. She looked at him again with a sad look on her face. "It is time."

Arashi's eyes widened and he gave her a defeated look. "No, please stay with me!"

He handed the baby to the doctor and sat down next to the woman. She was coughing up blood now and her voice was starting to leave her. "Please take care of Naruto for me."

The man nodded with tears in his eyes. "I will protect our son with my life. I won't let anything happen to him. It's a promise!"

The woman smiled now. "Then I am glad. You have never gone back on your word. I wanted to be with you so much longer. But I guess that this is all the time that we've got together." She closed her eyes as she winced in pain. She tried to caress his cheek, but when she could almost touch him, she lost her strength and her hand fell down.

Arashi grabbed her hand as the tears kept flowing. "I know that you will always be with me…in my heart. We will be together forever. You and me are one. You have given me the two best things in the world: your love and a beautiful son. I will love you forever and even after that. Don't you ever forget that!"

Setsuka smiled as she could see how much the man next to her loved her. "Yeah, I love you so much too. We will be together even after death. I will be waiting for you with open arms. Please tell Naruto that I loved him and that I am sorry that I wasn't there for him."

The man squeezed her hand as he gave the woman a nod. "I promise!"

She glanced to her side one last time and a smile crept on her face when she saw her beautiful man. Her eyes slowly closed and her hand started to fall down. "I love you."

Her hand fell down on the bed and her eyes closed completely. Arashi's eyes widened as he saw that his loved has stopped moving. "Setsuka? Setsuka!" He moved his ear to her breast and listened for a heartbeat. But he never heard it, because the woman was no longer among the living. He embraced her lifeless body and cried out loud for more than an hour.

"Setsuka!!"

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It had been a few hours since the death of Setsuka. The battle against the demon fox was still going on and the fox seemed to be on the winning side. The village was still shrouded in darkness and screams could be heard everywhere. And then there was that dreaded smell that could be smelled throughout the village…the smell of blood.

Konoha had always been the strongest nation in the village, but the village had weakened because of the wars lately. Especially the dreaded war against the rock ninja had cost them a lot of great shinobi.

The red fox was very close to the village now. The ninja they were waiting for had just returned and immediately began to fight the monster with everything they got. One of the shinobi of this group walked over to the white haired man who was leading the attack against the kitsune. "Jiraiya!"

The sannin turned around and smiled when he saw that back-up had finally arrived. "Ah, good that you guys are here. As you can see, we are barely able to hold that demon off. We haven't been able to damage it at all. Hopefully with you guys here, we will be able to make a counter-attack."

The grey haired man nodded and turned to the beast. "We will show that damn beast the will of fire. I will demonstrate the powers of a former hokage! Go get Arashi; we need him if we want to win a battle against the strongest of all bijuu!"

The white haired man smiled at the man who was now running towards the flaming fox. "Please be okay, Sarutobi-sensei." He turned around and started to run towards the tower of the leader of the village.

Arashi let out a huge sigh and put down the pen that he was holding. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see that his son was sleeping. After crying for a long time he was finally able to sing the boy to sleep with a song that he learned from Setsuka. He let out a small smile while he was thinking about his lover and picked up the piece of paper that was lying on the table. After folding it, he put the paper into a small brown box.

He then brought his right hand to his kunai pouch and brought out two scrolls. One of them was white and the other one was yellow. He put the two scrolls in the box too and then closed it. After glancing over to his son, he made some seals. "Seal!"

A seal started to appear on the box and Arashi stood up wanting to see his son more than anything. He caressed the cheek of his son and let out a smile. "Do you see that box over there, little guy. That is my gift to you."

The boy didn't wake up, but he did turn in his sleep. Arashi couldn't help but smile. Being a father was something he had dreamed of so often and now his dream had finally been realised. He grabbed the boy and turned him to his back again. "I am sorry my boy. I wish that I didn't have to do this, but this is the only thing that can save Konoha now."

He started making seals and stopped after almost two minutes of seal making. He then pressed his hand on Naruto's stomach. His hand started to emit some sort of yellow light and a seal started to appear. After removing his hand there was some sort of round seal on the belly of his son. It had a spiral in it and signs were there too.

The little boy frowned a little, but stayed asleep nonetheless. "We will defeat this demon fox together, little guy." He picked up the boy and he jumped out of the window.

After landing on the ground he made some seals with the boy under his arm. He moved his right hand to his mouth and bit his thumb. Blood was starting to appear and he moved the hand to the ground. "Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

There was a lot of smoke and when it cleared Arashi could see a large frog standing in the village. He had some kind of jacked on and he was smoking a pipe. He jumped on top of his head and sat down. "Please get me to the battlefield, Gamabunta!"

"**Sure kid. Who's the little man in your hands?" **The huge frog asked while jumping towards the battlefield.

Arashi looked at his son and smiled before answering. "He is my little son. He was born a few hours ago. His name is Naruto."

The frog smiled. **"Congratulations, kid. He looks a lot like you. I am sure that he will become a great man. Hold your ground, I am landing here. It is dangerous to get any closer with that monster fox there. The scar on my face proves that I am not strong enough to beat him."**

Arashi nodded and Gamabunta landed on the ground. He jumped on the ground and started to look around. He saw his friend and started to walk towards him. When he reached him he patted him on the back. "Hey, Jiraiya."

The white haired man turned around and smiled when he saw the hokage with a small boy in his hands. He didn't even have to ask who it was. The boy resembled the man in front of him so much, there was no mistake. "Congratulations."

Arashi nodded and handed the boy over to the sannin. "His name is Naruto." The boy laughed when he was placed in the hands of the white haired man. Jiraiya couldn't help but smile. The boy resembled his former student so much and he had the same smile too. He was surprised when the boy let out a sigh and he suddenly felt something wet. Jiraiya looked down and saw that his vest was getting all wet. "Yuck, the kid pissed all over me!"

Arashi started to laugh for a while and then looked to the ground. After a long time he had finally gathered the courage to speak: "Setsuka has died after giving birth to him."

Jiraiya's eyes widened when he heard the hokage and he nearly dropped the boy. "I am so sorry, Arashi."

Arashi started to walk past the man and watched as the kitsune was fighting off all the shinobi in it's path. "So how are things over here? I see back-up has arrived, but we are still losing aren't we…"

Jiraiya sighed and walked over to the hokage. "We won't be able to hold him off any longer. Even with Sarutobi-sensei and his team fighting, we are still losing badly. A lot of ninja have died and I am sure that the beast will be able to enter the city in a few minutes. I am sorry, but I fear that we must evacuate the village. I love this village, but we have no choice. The only option we have now is to flee."

Arashi sighed and took a look at the village of Konoha. "Jiraiya, I love this village more than anything. I have been raised in this village. I have been loved by this village. I have met Setsuka and all of my friends in this village. And now….I am the hokage of this village. I am not going to leave Konoha."

Jiraiya couldn't believe it. The man was so determined to protect the village. It almost brought tears to his eyes. He looked at the man in front of him and could see that he was smiling with the smile he always gave everyone. The smile would always make everything better somehow. "Please call everyone back now, Jiraiya. I will handle that fox now."

The white haired sannin raised an eyebrow, because he knew that he couldn't beat the fox on his own. He didn't know why, but suddenly he looked down and that's when he saw it. He saw the seal on the belly of the boy in his hand. He knew that his pupil was a genius when it came down to seals, but he knew a lot about seals too. He had been the one to teach him the basics about seals. He looked at the seal for a moment and then he suddenly remembered where he had seen the seal before. His eyes widened and he turned to the hokage. "No, you aren't!"

Arashi's smile turned into a serious expression now. He turned back to the Kyuubi and saw the destruction that the demon was causing. He frowned and let out a sigh. "I am not kidding, Jiraiya. This is the only thing that can stop that demon fox now and you know it. I always said that I would give my life to protect the village and now it is that time. Please understand."

Jiraiya looked down to the boy in his hands now and sighed. "I know, but that doesn't make it less hard on me. I really care a lot about you and I don't want to see you go. You are my favourite student and you have become one of my best friends. And what are you going to do with the boy. He needs to be taken care of. If you and Setsuka are both gone, then who will look after the boy?"

Arashi looked down for a moment now and then turned around to caress the cheek of his son once more. "We are going to beat that monster together. I hope that the people will be able to see him as a hero, because he will be. I am asking you to take care of him after I am gone. When he gets older, please train him like you have trained me. I can see in his eyes that he will become a strong shinobi. Please do this for me, Jiraiya."

The sannin looked to the boy in his hands and then to the man in front of him. He smiled and nodded. He raised his arm and used chakra to raise his voice. "Everyone, pull back now!"

The shinobi who were fighting didn't know what was going on, but they all listened nonetheless. They stopped fighting the monster and headed back. When Jiraiya saw this he turned to the hokage once more. "You can go now whenever you want, Arashi."

The yellow haired man nodded and let out a smile. He looked his son in the eyes and was happy that he started to smile. "Naruto, I love you so much, even though I haven't known you for that long. You truly made me and your mother so happy. And I hope that you will live a happy life. I really believe that you are a strong one, little man, and I know that you will get through this. Ero-sennin here and old man Sarutobi will look after you from now on. I really hope that the people of the village will be able to see you as a hero. I love the village so much and I know that you will be able to love the village just as much. No matter what you will do with your life, you will make your mother and me proud, you hear. Now, I have to go little man, I am going to miss you." He leaned in on the boy and gave him a kiss on his forehead.

Arashi then turned to the man holding his son. He embraced the man with all his might. "Thank you for everything, Jiraiya. You have been the best teacher that I could have ever hoped for and you have become a great friend too. Please take care of my boy and teach him like you did me. And when he gets older, please give him this box. There is a little something of his family in it. I think he will be happy when he gets it. Give it to him when you think he is ready, okay."

The white haired man nodded, now almost in tears and took the box. "I will take care of your son, I promise. I will train him to be a strong man like his father. I am so damn proud of you, Arashi. You really are a true hokage and more a noble man than I can ever wish to be. It has been an honour knowing you, Arashi."

Arashi smiled and almost cried when he heard those words. Then he started to smile a devilish smile. He closed in to one of his ears and started to whisper. "And stop peeking, Ero-sennin. I know that you like Tsunade-san. And deep down I think she likes you too. Just stop peeking and it will all work out." He then jumped up on top of Gamabunta.

Jiraiya began to blush, because his student had seen right through him. And he still gave him that irritating nickname. _'Even in the end, you are so damn disrespectful.'_

"Please take me close to the Kyuubi, Gamabunta. I will not ask you to fight. Please just take me close enough for my jutsu to work." He glanced down one more time to see his friend and his son, before the giant frog jumped towards the demon fox.

Jiraiya felt like the proudest man on the planet right now. The man who was going to face the kitsune was really the bravest man he had ever seen. He looked down to Naruto and started to smile. "You can be proud to be the son of that man, little guy." He suddenly felt something and looked down. He could see that his vest was wet again. "Damn it! That kid pissed on me again!"

Arashi was very close to the demon fox now. "Thank you, Gamabunta. This is close enough. Thank you for being a great summon and friend to me."

The frog smiled and let out some smoke from his mouth. **"It has been an honour to serve under you, Arashi. You are the best hokage that this village has ever known."**

Arashi looked down one more time and smiled. "Thanks a lot, Gamabunta." He then looked in front of him and he could see that the Kyuubi was closing in. He sighed and started making seals. "This is it. Thank you for everything, everyone. I know that you are going to be okay, Naruto. Please forgive me for doing this, but it is the only way to stop this monster."

He performed his last seal and closed his eyes. "I will be there soon, Setsuka." He said it with a bright smile on his face.

There was a huge light and everyone had to cover their eyes. Jiraiya turned his back to the light to protect the little boy in his arms. The light covered all of Konoha and everyone was surprised by this. A small girl looked at the light in awe. "Wow, it is the light of hope." The rest of the crowd started to look to and started to think the same thing. It was a beautiful yellow light.

When the light disappeared, the giant frog and the demon fox were nowhere to be found. They did however see the body of the man everyone respected on the ground. They didn't get it. What had happened to the Kyuubi and why was the hokage lying on the ground. Everyone walked over to him and saw that he was no longer breathing. Jiraiya was among them and looked very sad.

"He died to save the village. He has used a jutsu to seal the monster fox." The people started gaping and couldn't believe that the Kyuubi was finally gone. They had gone through so much because of that beast and now it was finally defeated. The people all remained silent for a while to honour the man who had saved them all: The legendary yellow flash, the saviour of Konoha.

A man covered in bandages stepped forward after a while and looked at the body of the hokage. "I don't see a seal; just where did he seal the monster? Or is the seal already gone, because the monster died along with him?"

Jiraiya sighed and just held up the boy in his hands. The eyes of almost everyone widened when they looked at the boy. There was a big red seal on his stomach and they could feel the demon chakra radiating from the boy. Also there suddenly were some whiskers on his face. Jiraiya could have sworn that they hadn't been there before. Some people became scared and others became angry, because the monster wasn't dead.

Jiraiya stepped forward and started to speak: "This boy has been chosen to become the container of the Kyuubi. He has saved this village by protecting us from the monster. The fourth couldn't take him with him. The demon fox would have escaped the moment that Arashi had died, if he had decided to seal it in his own body. So he decided to seal it in this boy." The white haired sannin stopped for a while and used some chakra to raise his voice so that the whole village could hear him.

"His name is Uzumaki Naruto and just like the fourth hokage he is a hero of the village!"

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**AN:** Whew…that was the first chapter of my new story. I wanted to do this for a long time now and I hope I did okay. I wanted to show what a great man the fourth was and how Naruto was born and got the Kyuubi inside him. I chose the name Arashi because I think it fits him and I didn't want a canon person to be his mother, so I just thought of Setsuka. This was just the prologue and the real story will begin in the next chapter. I will try to update as soon as I can. Please review, because I want to know how I did on this chapter. And please tell me what pairings you want to have in my story.

Until the next chapter!


	2. Becoming a shinobi

Hey, guys. I am sorry for the long wait, but I had a lot to do these past few weeks and to be honest I am still very busy. I have skipped Naruto's days before the academy for now. I am going to cover that aspect of his life in a flashback, just like I am going to do with Sakura and Sasuke.

This part is basically the first chapter of the manga. I have added some things that weren't in the manga. But the added things aren't so important. They are just needed for my story, because I am not going to follow the manga 100. I am not going to make an AU story, but my story will differ a bit from the manga.

"Hello": regular talking  
_'Hello'_: thinking  
'_**Hello'**_: Inner Sakura and Kyuubi talking

Don't forget to R&R ;)

**Enjoy**

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**Becoming a shinobi**

It has been more than twelve years since the Kyuubi had invaded the village of Konoha. The village had lost a lot of people because of the demon fox, but the yondaime hokage had put a stop to the destruction of the beast. He had sealed the destructive force into a small boy. One of the students of the sandaime hokage had told the people that on the day that it all happened. The fox was sealed in a boy named 'Uzumaki Naruto'

The said boy was currently walking towards a big building in the village with a big smile on his face. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit with a blue stripe. He had wild blond spiky hair and he had three whiskers on each cheek. He was also wearing a set of green goggles on his forehead. He was happy, because today would be the day that he would graduate from the academy.

The academy is the school where you have to go if you want to become a ninja. Almost everyone in the village was or had been there sometime. This is because he was living in the village of Konoha. Konoha is a hidden village and is located somewhere in the country of fire. The hidden village trains ninjas to protect the country and to keep it safe from harm.

Naruto had been accepted in the academy three years ago now. It is pretty early for someone to enter the academy so young, but he was accepted because he was very good with taijutsu for his age. He became a little sad, when he realised that he was also the only one from the school who didn't pass the graduation exam two times straight. Although he was good at taijutsu, to be able to pass the exam, you have to be good at other things too.

You have to learn all kind of things about the ninja world too. And in order to do this, you will have to read books. And this is just the thing. Naruto hates reading. It is not just that he is so bad at it; he thinks that it is boring too. So most of the times he totally forgot to study and he messed up a lot of written tests. He has always been the one with the lowest grades.

But this year things had been different. Although he hated it, he collected all of his will power and actually tried to learn something this year. He read his books and even tried to pay attention in class. It helped a lot that he had a really nice teacher this year, but it was a great feat nonetheless. He was still the one with the lowest grades this year, but his grades were passable. If he didn't screw up the exam this time, he would be able to graduate no problem.

But that's when the second problems comes in. To be able to pass the exam, you have to perform a jutsu. They don't tell which jutsu you have to perform until just before the exam, so it always is a nice surprise. It's always one of the three jutsus that you are taught at the academy though. These three are: henge no jutsu, kawarimi no jutsu and bunshin no jutsu.

The kawarimi no jutsu was no problem for the boy, but the other two….let's just say that he could do them better. The last two times he had to perform the bunshin no jutsu and he failed both times. He wasn't even able to create one bunshin and in order to pass you will have to make at least two of them.

He became a little nervous now. He thought he was prepared, but while practising today he wasn't able to make one good bunshin and his henge could still use some work too.

"Hehe, luck is an important part of strength too right. I just have to hope that I am going to perform the kawarimi no jutsu." Naruto said when he finally saw the academy.

After entering the building he could see that most of the teachers gave him cold looks and didn't say anything to him, while they were being friendly against everybody else. He didn't care though, it had been like this since he became a student at the school and he had learned to ignore it. And it weren't just the teachers who treated him like this. Almost all of the adults in the village gave him those cold looks.

He just wanted to know why they treated him like that. Was it because he was a prankster? He knew that the people weren't happy with him pulling pranks all the time, but that isn't a reason to hate someone, is it. He had thought about this matter a lot of times, but he just wasn't able to find an answer. Sighing he started to find his way to his classroom.

When he was almost there he bumped into a tall man. Naruto fell on the ground because of the collision and was starting to get up. He was about to say that he was sorry, when he saw who the man was. It was none other than his own teacher. The man was smiling at him and it made him really happy. All of the cold glares were immediately forgotten and when he was standing on his two legs again he gave the man a smile of his own.

"Hey, Iruka-sensei!" He said with a big smile on his face.

"Good morning, Naruto. Today is the big day, eh. I hope that you have been practising a lot the last few days. I want to be able to pass you this time, okay." The man with a scar on his face said while placing a hand on the boy's head.

"Don't worry, I have been practising like hell, sensei. I am going to earn that forehead protector today. I am done with being a small boy now and I am going to show everyone what a great ninja I am!" He said almost screaming, what attracted the attention of a lot of people in the building.

Iruka couldn't help but smile. He really wanted Naruto to pass this exam. The boy had always been a loud, troublemaking kid, but he just couldn't help feeling much for the kid. He didn't let Naruto know though. He was still his teacher and it was forbidden for a teacher to think better of one student than another. But still, he wanted Naruto to pass, especially because of what had happened yesterday.

The boy had once again pulled a prank. And it wasn't just a little prank…he had disgraced the stone faces of the hokages by vandalising them. When Iruka had found him he was running away, but the scarred man was able to catch him. It was one thing that the boy did it, but the worst thing was that he did it while it was time to go to school. So he did the only thing what he could think of and brought the boy back to school.

He then ordered all of his students to perform the henge no jutsu. Everybody had blamed Naruto for this, but the boy didn't seem to mind. They all had to transform into Iruka and everyone was doing a good job. That was until it was Naruto's turn to perform the jutsu. When Iruka saw the grin on the boy's face, he knew that it would mean trouble. The boy did the seal and transformed, but not into Iruka. No, now a beautiful naked blonde girl was standing in front of him. Iruka then got a nosebleed and the rest of the class started laughing. After that he scolded the boy and brought him with him to clean up the stone faces of the hokage.

What happened then hurt Iruka a lot. The boy was cleaning the stone faces and Iruka could see that the boy hated it. But when he told the boy that he couldn't go home until he cleaned everything, the boy replied that he didn't have anyone to go to anyway. This hit Iruka like a rock. He knew that Naruto didn't have parents. The boy was living on his own in this world and that was a hard thing.

Iruka had lost his parents too when he was very young and he knew that it was hard with nobody at your side. He had become a prankster himself too in order to attract some attention. Then one day the third hokage had come his way and told him that he never had to feel alone again. The old man had saved him from the loneliness. The academy teacher realised then that he resembled the yellow haired boy in front of him very much and he sighed. He walked over to the boy and told him that he was going to treat him to ramen after cleaning. He can still remember how happy the boy seemed after hearing those words.

When the boy had finished cleaning they went to the ramen shop. Iruka knew that he had made a mistake by saying that he would pay. The boy kept eating and eating and he just didn't know how to stop. Iruka did the only thing that he could think of and started to talk to the boy then, hoping that the boy would forget eating while talking.

"Hey, don't eat too much, Naruto. You will get stomach ache if you keep eating like that." He said with a smile on his face.

When the boy didn't respond and even ordered another bowl of ramen, he just sighed. He knew that there was no stopping this boy when he started eating. He grabbed his notebook and a pen. He started writing: 'Never and I say never treat Naruto to ramen again.'

"So, why did you do it? You know who the people on that rock are, right?" He said while putting away his notebook.

"Of course I know who they are! They are the hokages of the village. They are the strongest ninjas of their time and they have protected their village with everything they had." Naruto said with a mouth full of noodles.

Iruka was about to say something then, but Naruto was faster. "I am going to be a hokage someday too. No forget that. I am going to be greater than all the kages in the world. That way I can protect everybody and make sure that everyone will acknowledge me."

Iruka was struck by awe then. He hadn't known that the boy was this determined to seek acknowledgement. It was amazing for someone like him to be so determined and the man was very impressed with the boy. He knew how hard it was and this boy had it even tougher than he had when he was young. He didn't say anything and just gave the boy a smile.

After that he had let the boy eat in peace and just thought about the resolve of the young boy. He was his worst student of all times and here he said that he would become greater than all the kages. It is true that the boy had talent, but he just needed someone to help him. Without help the training of a ninja can be very hard. This was one of the reasons why the boy had such a hard time now. Usually parents help their kids with their school. They help their kids to learn jutsus and other important things. The boy next to him just needed someone to help him, support him. Iruka had then decided that he would be that support for the boy.

He turned his face to see what the boy was doing and to his surprise the boy was taking off his goggles. He then raised a brow, because he didn't understand why the boy would do that. The boy wore those goggles for as long as he knew and it was the first time since years that he saw the boy without them.

He was broken out of his thoughts then though, when the boy started to speak to him. "Sensei, can I please borrow your forehead protector? I want to see how it looks on me."

Iruka looked up and touched the forehead protector with his hand. "Oh this, sorry, I can't give it to you. When you are allowed to wear this, it means that you have come of age and that you are a real ninja. Just do your best and then I can give it to you tomorrow. I believe in you, Naruto."

Iruka could still remember the look that the boy got on his face that moment. It wasn't just happiness, it was something more. It was an emotion that he wasn't able to describe. That's why he wants the boy to pass. When he saw that the boy was now walking towards his classroom and his exam, he smiled. _'Do your best, Naruto.'_

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Naruto entered the classroom and walked over to his seat. He noticed that a lot of people were nervous today. Most of the kids were walking around or talking with each other with strained looks on their faces. But one of the kids got his attention. It was the only kid who didn't seem to be nervous. It was the kid that he hated more than anything. It was the so called child prodigy of the village. There, in the corner, was sitting his long time rival: Uchiha Sasuke.

Naruto walked over to the raven haired boy. When the dark haired boy saw that Naruto was walking towards him, he smirked and turned away. This made Naruto even angrier and he sat down next to him. After glancing to the boy a few times, he was about to say something when he heard another familiar noise.

"Get out of the way, Ino-pig!"

It was the most beautiful voice he had ever heard and he knew exactly who the voice belonged to. He turned around and saw two girls entering the room. One of them he truly hated. It was the blonde haired girl who always pestered him. He knew that she worked in the flower shop and the girl always acted so terrible towards him. She was totally upside down over Sasuke, just like any other girl of course.

After giving the blonde girl in front of him a mean look, he turned his attention to the other girl. His face lightened when he saw who the other one was. He was right. The angelic voice belonged to no other than his beloved Sakura-chan. He would never grow tired of looking at the cute girl. She was the only girl he had ever seen with pink hair and somehow he had fallen totally in love with the colour. He was about to walk over to her when he saw that she was waving at his direction.

'_It can't be right? Is Sakura-chan really waving at me?'_ He thought and he stood up and started waving at her too.

"Good morning, Sakura-chan!" He said when he saw that Sakura started to run towards him.

His smile couldn't get any bigger. The girl he had liked for so long was running towards him. When the girl was within arms reach, he looked the girl in the eyes. Her eyes were truly beautiful. They were made of the most beautiful emerald green he had ever seen. What surprised him the most was that she looked him in the eyes too. Surprised he almost fell down, but he didn't dare to look away. It surprised him even more when the girl gave him a cute smile. He was so lost in the moment that he didn't notice that she had run past him and was now hanging around Sasuke, just like all the other girls.

He didn't mind though. He knew that Sakura had a thing for Sasuke, just like the rest. But he wouldn't give up anyway. That look that she gave him just now, only made him stronger. It was only for a moment, but he was sure that she gave him a smile when their eyes had locked just now. It wasn't a great smile, but she smiled nonetheless. He felt really happy now.

He turned his attention to the group now and he just had to smile when he saw that Sasuke hated all the attention he was getting. All the girls were swooning around him and it went like this every day. Naruto would have loved it, but Sasuke seemed to hate it. When Sasuke made a loud growl the girls backed off and went to their respective seats. Naruto had become even angrier now and just couldn't understand why all those girls would be so crazy about that boy. He decided that he would find out what was so special about the boy.

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Sasuke was happy that the girls had finally left him alone. He hated all the attention. Why couldn't those girls just leave him alone? He hadn't done anything to draw their attention, hadn't he? In all of the time at the academy he hadn't even looked at one of the girls once. He always distanced himself from them, because they were just a bother. He wasn't able to train properly if those stupid people were hanging around him. Because of this he was always the first one to leave the academy when class was over. That way none of the girls was able to follow him to his training spot.

After sighing he had closed his eyes and he started thinking about his past. He became angry when he saw two big red eyes with three black spots in it. The eyes were extremely big and he himself was like a rodent in front of those eyes. The face became clearer and clearer and before he knew it there was an entire face before him. He recognised the face like no other and started running towards it. When he had reached his destination though, the face disappeared and he fell down into a big dark hole. He could hear someone talk to him when he was falling though.

"**Foolish little brother."**

"**Hate me."**

"**Detest me."**

He almost hit the ground when he quickly opened his eyes. He was surprised when he saw a big orange blur in front of him. He looked up and saw that Naruto was standing on the desk before him looking down on him. He didn't want to let the boy in front of him know, but the bastard scared the shit of him just now. He hit himself mentally. Was he really so distracted that he couldn't even sense the 'dead last'?

"What are you doing, dobe?" He asked while looking the boy in front of him fiercely in the eyes.

"I really can't see what those girls see in you. They have to be blind or something." Naruto said while looking up and down.

At this Sasuke raised a brow. The boy in front of him was talking nonsense and he was started to become rather irritated because of it. Why couldn't everyone just leave him alone? He tried to growl, but the boy in front of him didn't even flinch. Why couldn't it just work with him too, it worked with the girls…He sighed and just decided to close his eyes again.

Naruto heard some voices, so he turned his head to his side and saw that all of the girls were standing next to each other. Sakura and Ino were standing in the middle of the group and they seemed like the leaders. All of them had angry looks on their faces. He didn't understand. Were they now jealous of him, because he was sitting in front of that bastard?

"Get away from Sasuke-kun!" All girls screamed in unison.

Naruto had no intention of doing so and he just turned to face the raven haired boy again. The boy who was sitting behind Naruto was shocked when he heard the outburst of the girls though and he quickly turned to the noise. When he was turning though, his elbow hit something and he just didn't know what. So he turned around and saw that there was a boy on the desk behind him.

"Oh, sorry, my bad." The boy said.

When he saw that all of the girls had become quiet and had unbelieving expressions on their faces, he decided to look what had happened. His eyes widened when he saw what he had done. His elbow had caused Naruto to fall forward and now his lips were touching Sasuke's.

Naruto and Sasuke quickly broke apart and both of them started puking. When they were done with that, they quickly wiped their sleeves around their mouth. Both had expression of pure horror on their faces. They both turned around and looked the boy who had caused this in the eyes.

The poor boy didn't know what hit him. Naruto and Sasuke both had the eyes of a demon now and the boy became awfully scared. When the two angry boys started fisting their hands, he tried to take a few steps backwards. The desk stopped him from escaping though and the last thing he saw were the fists of two extremely angry boys.

Naruto felt relieved now after hitting the boy and turned to Sasuke. The raven haired boy was already back to his normal self. The said boy was enjoying the inside of his eyes again. Naruto grinned at this, but he quickly regained himself when he suddenly felt a lot of chakra coming from somewhere. And there was something else too. Hate…pure hate.

He turned around and his eyes widened. The girls were glaring at him with cold, horrifying looks on their faces. Naruto started sweating and he knew that he was in deep shit. He turned around, hoping to find an escape route. But when he jumped away, he was pulled back by a few hands and the last thing he saw were a lot of scary faces. "Help!"

When the boy came to he saw that he was sitting on a chair again. He looked around and could see all of the girls glaring at him. Three girls on a table next to him were whispering something, but he could hear it anyway. Since his birth he has been able to hear better than most people and at times like this, he cursed himself for this ability. Some things just weren't meant to be heard.

"That stupid monster. He always causes trouble and it pisses me off." One girl said to another one.

"Why can't he just die and leave us alone." The other one said back.

"My parents say that he is a demon and that we need to stay away from him." A third one said when he heard where the other two were talking about.

Naruto became sad when he heard all of this. It was bad enough that the adults were treating him so badly, but now his own classmates were treating him exactly the same. He sighed, because he knew that he couldn't do anything about it. No matter what he would tell them, it wouldn't make a difference. He just had to pass this exam, so that he could become hokage and make everyone acknowledge him.

He continued looking around until he saw the person who was sitting next to him. It was no other than Sakura. The pink haired girl who had just beaten him to a pulp was sitting next to him. She was staring to the other side and Naruto took a look and saw that Sasuke was sitting next to her. He sighed and then quickly covered his mouth. He hoped that Sakura didn't hear him, because he didn't want her to hurt him again.

When the girl started to turn around he cursed his own luck. He desperately looked around searching for an excuse, but in the end he wasn't able to find one. When nothing happened he turned to the girl again and was surprised that the girl was looking him in the eyes with an angry look on her face. Naruto knew that he shouldn't be thinking about it now, but he still thought that she had beautiful eyes. When she started to motion her hand to him, he closed his eyes and he started praying for a quick death.

His eyes spat open though, when he felt something soft touch his cheek. He was shocked when he saw that Sakura's hand was touching him.

"Sakura-chan? W..what are y…you doing?" He said stuttering. He was surprised when the girl gave him an angry look again.

"Sit still. Your cheek became a bit dirty after hitting the ground because of me and the other girls. You can't do the exam with a dirty cheek now can you?" She said with a serious expression on her face.

Naruto didn't even question her; he just obeyed and stayed still. He knew that the girl in front of him didn't take no for an answer. When the pink haired girl removed her hand, she gave him a small smile. This scared the shit out of Naruto.

"There all done." She said. "Now why don't you stop being so annoying for a change and try to behave. This is a very important day for you too, right?"

Naruto's eyes widened. Not did she just talk to him, but what hit him the most was the fact that she didn't call him a monster or a demon. She just said that he was being annoying and he really couldn't blame her for that. He knew that he was being pretty annoying. The girl had already turned around to look at the raven haired boy again, but Naruto couldn't help but feel really happy right now. _'Pink is now more than ever my favourite colour.'_

Naruto sighed and watched as Sakura was still looking at Sasuke, while the other students silently panicked over the test. He looked behind him and saw that Ino was glaring at Sakura who was now started glaring back at the girl. He didn't know why, but he wouldn't want to be between those two now. It would mean instant death. He was broken out of his thoughts though when Iruka walked into the classroom. He was carrying some papers and had a serious expression on his face.

'_Took him long enough.'_ Naruto thought while he was getting ready for the exam.

"For your final exam, you are going to perform the bunshin no jutsu. You have to generate at least two bunshins. Wait here until your name is called and then exit the classroom. There will be a man waiting for you outside and he will bring you to the room for the exam." Iruka said before he walked out of the room again.

Sasuke silently laughed in his head. The rest of the students seemed to relax as well.

"Just two bunshins. This is going to be much easier than I thought" Ino said on.

"How troublesome. Can you pipe down a bit?" Another boy said.

Naruto on the other hand was freaking out. Again he had to perform his worst jutsu. Why did the heavens hate him? When the first name was called, Naruto tried to stay calm. He started thinking about happy thoughts. He thought about Sakura, about ramen and about many other happy things.

Another name was called. It just didn't seem to help. He became only more nervous by the minute. He started to sweat now and his eyes became wide. The man who called for the names came into the room again and Naruto became awfully scared now. There weren't many people left in the room. He had been so freaked out that he even hadn't seen Sakura leave for her exam. He hit himself, because he had wanted to wish her good luck.

"Uchiha Sasuke, please follow me." The man said

Sasuke soon left to go take the exam. When he was walking past Naruto he gave the boy a smirk, because he saw how scared the boy was. He knew that the boy hated the bunshin no jutsu more than anything. When he had left the room, only Naruto and two other remained. Naruto clenched his fist and decided to just get it over with. If he couldn't get through this exam, then he would never become hokage. When the man entered the classroom again, Naruto had a determined expression on his face.

"Uzumaki Naruto, please come with me."

Naruto took a breath and stood up. He looked behind him and saw the two others still sitting there with confident smiles on their faces. Naruto didn't get it. Was he the only one who hated the bunshin no jutsu? He walked to the door and walked past the man. When he did this, he just could help but see the cold glare coming from the man, but he didn't mind.

He walked to the next room, where the desks and chairs were all shoved to the sides of the classroom. He could see that two teachers were sitting at the teacher's desk. One of them was his own teacher and the other one was the teacher from another class. He was called Mizuki. It was the only teacher besides Iruka who didn't give him cold looks. There were still three forehead protectors lying on the table. That meant that everyone before him had passed. For a moment, Naruto wanted to run away, but he fought off the feeling and tried to make a determined face

"Naruto," stated Iruka, "Please perform the bunshin no jutsu now. You may begin whenever you are ready."

Naruto placed his hands together and made the seal that was necessary for the bunshin no jutsu. He started gathering a lot of chakra and while he was doing that he tried to remember everything he had learned. This was the time that he was going to pass. It was now or never.

"Bunshin no jutsu!"

There was a puff of smoke and Naruto didn't want to look to his side. Something just didn't feel right to him. When he saw the weird faces on his teacher's face, he decided to glance to his side. His eyes widened when he saw the result of his jutsu. He had made a clone, but the clone was dead looking. It was also deformed and it didn't have any colour.

Naruto knew that he had messed up now and glanced over to his teacher. Iruka's whole body twitched as he stared at the dead thing on the ground. He was able to see the disappointment in his teacher's eyes. Mizuki looked disappointed too, but gave the boy a smile nonetheless.

Iruka sighed and pointed a finger at the door. "You fail!!!"

Naruto became sad when he heard his teacher say this and turned around to walk towards the exit. He couldn't believe it. He had failed again. What kind of failure was he? He just wanted to become a ninja. Was that so much to ask? He was broken out of his thoughts when he heard the other teacher's voice.

"Iruka-sensei, this is the third time that he is doing this exam and he did manage to basically make a bunshin, even if it was a little flawed."

Iruka sighed and started to rapidly shake his head. "The answer is no, Mizuki."

Mizuki looked slightly disappointed and Naruto could see that he was trying to think of something. He was about to say something again, when Iruka started talking again.

"Every student is supposed to generate at least two bunshins. Everyone else made two clones or more. Naruto only made one and it wasn't even a good one. The thing couldn't even fool the weakest of enemies. In order for a ninja to survive he must be able to perform this jutsu. I am not happy with Naruto failing too, but it is for his own safety." Iruka said with a sad tone.

Mizuki nodded knowing that his fellow teacher was right. Naruto saw that Mizuki had stopped trying now too and turned around again. He exited the room and started to walk outside.

Outside, Naruto immediately made for the swing set. He sat on it and was deep in thought. He hated himself for failing, he really hated himself. In front of him he could see all the other kids with their parents. They were all acting happy and the kids were being praised by their parents. Naruto became even more sad now, because he would never know that feeling. He had no parents, so he would never understand how that would feel like.

When he looked at the group, he could see that several people were looking at him with looks of disgust on their faces. They started to talk to each other and although they were pretty far away, Naruto was still able to hear what they were saying to each other.

"Hey, isn't he the kid who?" The woman on the left said while looking at Naruto.

"Yeah." replied the one on the right, "That is him. He is only one who failed."

"Imagine if they let someone like him become a shinobi. I mean think about what he is." The left one said again.

The woman on the right held up her hand now "We can't talk about that, remember."

The two women walked away, leaving Naruto with some odd thoughts. He was really unhappy now. He was quite used to it by now, but that didn't mean that it hurt less. And what really confused him is what they were going to say before they stopped. They were talking about him like he wasn't even human. _'Just what am I?'_

Iruka walked outside the building after the exams and he could see that Naruto stood up from the swing and walked away. He had never seen the down so down before. He wanted to go talk to him, but was stopped by a hand. When he glanced over his shoulder, he could see that the hokage was standing next to him. His eyes widened at the sight.

"Hokage-sama."

"Iruka, I need to talk to you." The old man said with the pipe still in his mouth.

"Yes, hokage-sama." Iruka said, before he left with the hokage.

Naruto was walking through the village with no destination in mind. He didn't feel like going home yet. He would be all alone and being alone was a thing he didn't want right now. He was interrupted when he hears someone call his name. He turned around and saw that Mizuki was coming towards him.

"Mizuki-sensei." He said in a surprised tone.

Mizuki made a hand gesture indicating Naruto to follow him and Naruto did just that. Mizuki led him to the roof of a house and they both sat down. Naruto wasn't in the mood for talking, so he decided to keep quiet. He was again lost in thought when Mizuki suddenly started talking to him.

"You know, Naruto, Iruka-Sensei is a really serious guy. Did you know his parents died when he was young? So he had to do everything himself. It took him a lot of hard work, but eventually he reached his goal to become an academy instructor."

"What's that got to do with me?" Naruto asked with a sad look on his face. He didn't know that Iruka had a sad past too, but he still didn't get why the man next to him was telling him all this. Was he trying to make him feel better or something? It wasn't really working.

"I think he sees himself in you." said Mizuki, "He wants you to become strong the hard way. By working hard and doing your best. Try to understand his feelings, Naruto. Just like you, he didn't have parents while growing up too. He didn't fail you because he hates you. He failed you because he wants you to become strong. Please try to understand Naruto."

"But I really wish that I had graduated." protested Naruto. He really couldn't think of anything else to say.

Mizuki sighed. "Looks like I have no other choice. I will tell you a special secret then."  
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Iruka was lying on his bed. He was still thinking about Naruto. The boy resembled him so much. The hokage just told him that too. Naruto has had a though life and he just needs someone to be there for him. He still remembered the day that he lost his parents like no other. They were fighting the Kyuubi and suddenly Iruka was taken away by some other ninja, saying that they had to pull back. It turned out that his parents had been killed by the Kyuubi that day. When the Kyuubi was finally defeated, he had nobody left. But the hokage had saved him and Iruka vowed now that he would save Naruto too.

He was surprised when the alarm suddenly went off. He jumped out of his bed and saw that every chuunin and jounin was heading towards the tower of the hokage. He quickly put on his clothes and headed towards the tower as well.

A group of angry chuunin stood in the front of the tower when Iruka arrived. The Lord Hokage stood at the centre. Iruka was about to ask what was wrong, when the hokage started to speak. "Uzumaki Naruto has stolen the scroll of sealing."

Iruka's eyes widened then. Did he just hear that right. No, Naruto wouldn't do something like that. He looked around and saw that everyone was as shocked as he was. But something just didn't feel right. He looked around another time and saw that Mizuki was missing. Then something hit him. He saw that Mizuki was talking to Naruto today after the exam when he was walking home. He was broken out of his thoughts when a chuunin started to speak.

"Lord Hokage," he shouted, "This is not just a prank, this is a serious crime."

"That scroll contains secrets were sealed away by the previous hokage. If it falls into the wrong hands it can destroy our way or life." The other chuunins nodded.

The Hokage, watching all of the people before him, finally came to a decision.

"Alright, find the boy and bring him here at once. Please don't hurt the boy. I don't think that he knows what he is doing. Please bring him back unharmed!" The Hokage raised his hand and everyone vanished.

Iruka decided the first place to look would be the apartment, but looking there he didn't see any sign of Naruto. He then looked throughout the whole village, but there wasn't any trace of him left. He landed on a high rooftop and sat down for a bit to rest a little. He thought about all the places where he had seen Naruto, but he just couldn't think of any more places. He stared of in the distance and then he remembered. He knew that Naruto's favourite training spot was in the forest. He stood up and headed towards the great forest around the village.

Iruka became happy when he finally saw the boy in the distance. He was right, the boy was at his favourite training spot. He increased his speed and landed right in front of the boy who didn't seem to flinch because of it at all.

"It's all over, Naruto, I found you." Iruka said with a devilish smile on his face.

Naruto stood up, scratching the back of his head. "Hehe, you caught me already, sensei. I only had the time to learn one technique."

Iruka was really surprised this time as he pondered over these words. Then he took his time to take a good look at the boy. He had bruises and scrapes all over his body and he seemed exhausted. He was broken out of his thoughts when the boy spoke.

"Look, Iruka-sensei," said Naruto with a big smile on his face. Iruka hadn't seen that smile since this morning and he wondered what made the boy so happy. "I'm going to show you this amazing jutsu, and you're going to let me graduate, then everything will be okay."

'_Has he been training here the whole time while we were looking for him?And you even trained enough to hurt your own body?' _Iruka thought.

"Huh, where'd you get that idea," he asked wanting to know where he got that stupid idea.

"Mizuki-sensei told me about it. He told me where to find the scroll. And then he told me that if I showed you one of the skills on this scroll that I would definitely graduate." He said with a big grin on his face.

'_Mizuki? Why would he tell Naruto about the scroll? What the hell is going on?' _Iruka thought. He just couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had known Mizuki since they were little kids and he was one of the only people who acknowledged him when he was younger. Suddenly Iruka turned around, when heard some noises.

"Naruto watch out!" He shouted.

When he saw that Naruto wasn't moving, he pushed Naruto aside with all his power. Naruto hadn't expected this and flew backwards. When he finally got up he looked around and saw what had happened. Iruka was pinned to a three with some kunai imbedded in his body. Blood was pouring out and Naruto couldn't believe what he was seeing. He looked up and his eyes widened when he saw that Mizuki was standing on a tree branch with a big shuriken tied to his back. The man didn't look like the nice teacher from earlier anymore; he had the expression of a true killer on his face.

"So that's what going on." Iruka said while he was pulling on of the kunai out of his body.

Mizuki now turned to Naruto and became very serious. "Naruto! Give me the scroll now."

Naruto looked from Mizuki to Iruka with a horrified expression. He didn't know what was going on and he didn't like it. He had never seen someone getting hit by kunai like that and it scared him a bit.

"Wait a minute. What's going on here?" He said with fear in his voice.

Iruka pulled out another kunai. He had trouble breathing and was losing a lot of blood, but he didn't care at the moment. He had to protect Naruto and the village with his whole being. "Naruto, don't let Mizuki get the scroll. Protect it with your life! It contains forbidden jutsus that can put this village in grave danger."

When Mizuki saw that Naruto was starting to listen to Iruka, he decided that he would have to use another approach. "There really is no point in you having the scroll, Naruto. I will tell you the truth now."

Iruka's eyes widened, realizing what Mizuki meant. "No, Mizuki!"

Unfortunately Mizuki paid him no attention. "You know that the Kyuubi had been defeated twelve years ago, right? That's what we teach you at school anyway. The third hokage created a rule after that. And all of the adults know. Iruka's trying to hide it from you even now."

Naruto looked up with confusion in his eyes. "What is this rule? Why does everyone else know about it?"

Mizuki had an evil smile on his face when he continued. "This rule is that no one can tell you that the nine tailed fox is sealed within you!"

"What?!" Naruto asked with a expression of unbelief in his eyes.

"The Kyuubi was so strong that he couldn't be killed. So the fourth hokage did the only thing he could think of and sealed it within you. So you are the one who killed Iruka's parents and the one who nearly destroyed our village." Mizuki said with a dark smile on his face.

Iruka was almost begging Mizuki to stop, but it didn't help one bit. "They've been lying to you your whole life, Naruto. Didn't you think it was strange how they treated you? Now you know why they hated you. Even Iruka hates you deep inside!"

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" Naruto screamed while he was building up a lot of chakra.

"That's why you'll never be accepted in this village. You can even find the jutsu that sealed the fox in you in that scroll you are holding. Quite ironic, isn't it?"

Iruka looked on horror. Iruka knew that he had always been alone_. 'He had never known what it meant to be loved by a parent. Everyone in the village hated him and he didn't even know why. The poor boy makes a lot of trouble to find attention, but deep down he is the one suffering. He is seeking for acknowledgment in every way.' _He thought and he got tears in his eyes. When he saw that Mizuki was grabbing his big shuriken, he quickly stood up.

"Die, Naruto!" Mizuki screamed when he threw the giant object towards the boy.

Naruto didn't know what to do. He was so scared and his legs just wouldn't move. He saw the shuriken closing in on him and closed his eyes, hoping that everything what just happened was a dream. He was surprised when he heard something.

"Naruto, get down!"

Naruto opened his eyes and his jaw dropped when he saw what had happened. Iruka stood over him and had taken the hit for him. There was blood everywhere and it even came out of Iruka's mouth. A droplet of blood fell on Naruto's cheek, but he was too surprised to notice it. Mizuki was surprised too. He hadn't expected that the man would still be able to move after being hit by so many kunai.

"W…why!" Naruto screamed.

"B...because we're the same." Iruka said.

Naruto was surprised when the man said that and he became even more surprised when he saw that the man was crying. "When I lost my parents, I was just like you. I wanted attention so badly. So I started acting like an idiot just to get attention. It was so painful and I know how you must be feeling, Naruto. You must be in a lot of pain too. I am sorry for not being there for you, Naruto."

Naruto was nearly in tears himself, he had forgotten this from his memories, and hearing Iruka's words made him feel sad all over again.

Naruto didn't know what to do and took off running. Mizuki landed next to Iruka and laughed. "Naruto isn't going to have a change of heart. He's going to use the scroll to take revenge on the village." Mizuki said while he sat down next to the scarred man. "You saw that look in his eyes, didn't you? Those were the eyes of a demon."

"No." Iruka said with a low voice, while he pulled out the giant shuriken. "Naruto isn't like that!" He threw the shuriken towards Mizuki, but was surprised when the man easily caught it. He put it back on his back and smiled.

Iruka sighed. "Just why are you doing this, Mizuki? I thought that we were friends. Haven't we always been together? Haven't we done so many things together? Why have you changed so much?"

Mizuki laughed and leaned against a three. "I guess I could tell you. The Mizuki that you knew has been long gone. I have been acting this way for a long time. You have always been the favourite of the third hokage and I hated it. You were always weaker than me and I did everything to help the old geezer, but still, he chose you over me and I couldn't take that. I even saved your life a few times, like during the academy teacher exam. But still that stupid hokage chose you!"

"But why did you let Naruto steal the scroll of sealing then?" Iruka asked with a confused look on his face.

Mizuki started laughing with a devilish smile. "Because Orochimaru told me to do it!"

"Orochimaru! How did you get in contact with that guy?!" Iruka screamed out, not believing that he heard that right.

"While you were being comforted by the third hokage time after time, I trained and trained like hell. Then one day I met him and he told me that he could grand me a lot of power if I would help him with something. But he told me that we would have to wait until I had gotten stronger, so that's what I did. I decided that I would get power to be able to defeat everyone in this stupid village. Then he came to me again and told me that I only had to steal the scroll of sealing for him. It was that easy, so I decided to do it." Mizuki said while he was walking around.

"You fool, you know what kind of man Orochimaru is, don't you!? If he gets his hands on that scroll, he will surely use it to destroy the village!" Iruka screamed out.

"Hehe, you're a joke. As soon as I eliminate the demon boy and take the scroll, I'll be back for you." Mizuki jumped into the woods leaving Iruka behind. Although the man still had a lot of injuries, he wasn't about to let Mizuki get away with this. He stood up and headed in the same direction. "I won't let you!"  
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Naruto frantically jumped from tree branch to tree branch when he suddenly heard a voice. Iruka appeared from a tree and headed towards him "Naruto! Give me the scroll. Mizuki is after it!" Iruka shouted.

Iruka was surprised as Naruto suddenly slammed into him. He went flying and landed near a tree. He was breathing heavily and was hurt. He hadn't expected this and had landed hard. Naruto landed too. He was panting hard too.

"Why, Naruto?" Iruka asked softly.

Naruto took the scroll off his back and slumped down against a tree. Iruka struggled to stand up and gave Naruto a fierce look. "How did you know, Naruto? How did you know that is was me and not Iruka?" Mizuki said when he undid his henge.

"Because, I'm Iruka." Iruka said after undoing his own henge.

Mizuki stood up and grinned with an evil expression on his face. "You would even change into the monster that killed your parents. Why are you protecting that monster?"

Meanwhile Naruto and watched from behind a tree. He didn't know what had just happened, but he knew that he couldn't run away when they were so close. Deciding that it would be better to stay put, he listened to what Iruka was about to say.

I won't give you the scroll. I would die before I give it to you." Iruka said with a determined expression on his face.

"Naruto is just like me. If you have that scroll, you can do whatever you want. There is no way that the demon fox wouldn't use that power!"

Back below, Iruka suddenly agreed with Mizuki. "You're right."

Naruto buried his head in the scroll and tears started to fall out. _'I knew it, deep down even Iruka-sensei doesn't acknowledge me.' _He was broken out of his thoughts when the man continued.

"The Kyuubi would do that, but Naruto is different. I have acknowledged him as one of my excellent students. He may not be the hardest worker, but he puts his hearts into it. He is rather clumsy, so nobody accepts him. But he knows what it is to have pain in his heart and that makes him strong. So he's nothing like the demon fox. He is a member of the village hidden in the leaves. He is Uzumaki Naruto!" Iruka said with a proud look on his face.

Naruto was crying at this point. He couldn't believe it. Iruka really acknowledged him for who he was. This meant so much to the boy and he shamed himself for even doubting the man.

Mizuki's eye twitched as he grabbed his shuriken. "I was going to take care of you later, but now I am changing my mind. You're finished!" Mizuki shouted while he was spinning the big shuriken. He was about to throw it when Naruto kneed him in the face. Mizuki went flying and landed a lot of meters further. The traitor was getting up and had an expression full of hatred in his face. "You should not have done that." He said while he wiped away some blood from the corner of his mouth.

Naruto looked at the man with the intention to kill now. He put the scroll down next to him and held it in place with one of his hands. "Don't you ever touch Iruka-sensei again. I'll kill you!"

"Haha, I can kill you with one hit, demon boy!" Mizuki shouted back when he stood back up again.

Naruto glared him down, while making a hand seal. Iruka saw this too and he became confused. Naruto was making the cross seal. That seal was only used for a few jutsus and he wasn't supposed to know one of them. He was about to tell Naruto that he should run away, when the boy started talking again.

"Just do your best, you piece of trash. You will pay for what you have done to my sensei." Naruto said with his hands still in the cross seal.

Mizuki started to charge with an evil grin on his face. He knew that the boy was bluffing. He was the all time failure. There was just no way that the boy would be able to defeat a chuunin like him. He grabbed a kunai and smiled. "Let's see what you can do then, Kyuubi boy!"

"Kage bunshin no jutsu!"

There was a gigantic puff of smoke and Iruka couldn't believe his eyes when he saw what had happened. Naruto had multiplied by a lot of times and everywhere he looked he could see a copy of Naruto. He then looked up and there were Naruto's in the trees too. His eyes widened. He had never seen anything like this before in his life.

Mizuki became confused and scared now.. He did not have any idea what technique was being used against him. Was it possible for someone to make this many bunshins? These thoughts just made him more unfocused. "What the hell is going on!?" He fell down on his back, terrified. There were too many clones; he was definitely not expecting this.

"What's wrong!" One of the clones screamed.

"Weren't you going to kill me with one shot!" Another one said with a smile on his face.

"You are going to pay for what you have done to Iruka-sensei!" They all called in unison before they all jumped towards their enemy.

The first line of attack kicked Mizuki in the air. Mizuki was hurt pretty bad and began making seals to defeat the clones that kicked him up. He turned around when he heard some noises behind him though. His eyes widened when he saw that Naruto clones were coming from behind too. He tried to block, but it was no use. He was hit by a lot of kicks and punches and fell on the ground. Then the last ones walked right up to him and spit him in the face. Then Naruto dispelled all of his clones and walked over to the man who was lying on the ground. The poor guy had a look of pure horror in his face and he was trying to get up. Naruto clenched his fist and hit the man on the cheek with all the strength he could muster.

"If I see you near Iruka-sensei one more time, I am going to kill you for real. You got that!" He said before he walked past him.

Iruka still couldn't believe what had just happened. It weren't just bunshins, but he made real clones. It couldn't be right. Naruto had just mastered the 'kage bunshin no jutsu' in a few hours. That's a jounin level ninjutsu and even most jounins have trouble performing the jutsu. He just couldn't help but smile. The boy might really have what it takes to surpass all the kages.

"Hey Naruto, come here. There's something I want to give you." Iruka said with a smile on his face. He wanted to walk over to the boy himself, but he had lost some blood and was feeling quite dizzy at the moment. Naruto complied and walked over to the man. He was planning on doing that anyway, but if his teacher was telling him to come, it had to be important.

"What is it, Iruka-sensei? Do you need help?" He asked with a worried look on his face.

Iruka smiled. The boy was truly fascinating. Almost nobody had ever loved him or showed him compassion and here was asking him if he was alright. Tears started to come up again, but he wasn't about to let Naruto see that he was almost crying. "Please close your eyes for a moment, Naruto."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "I am not going to hurt you or something, Naruto. Lets say that I have a surprise for you."

Naruto still didn't understand, but he decided to listen to the man before him and he closed his eyes and waited for something to happen. After a few seconds he became impatient. Naruto has always been one of the people with a short fuse. "Can I open my eyes now, sensei?" He said it in a complaining way.

"Okay," Iruka said, "you can open your eyes now."

Naruto opened his eyes, but for a moment he was blinded. He blinked a few times and his vision came back to him. He was surprised when he saw Iruka standing before him without his forehead protector on his forehead. "Congratulations. You graduate." Iruka said with a big smile on his face.

Iruka waited for a response, but when he didn't receive it he opened his eyes. Naruto stood before him with a shocked expression on his face. His jaw almost reached the ground. Iruka smiled when he saw this. He knew that this meant so much to the boy. He closed his eyes, before speaking: "Come on, I am going to treat you on some ramen because you passed."

Naruto's mouth went from shocked to almost happy and before Iruka knew it the boy hugged him and tackled him over. "Thank you so much, Iruka-sensei!" He shouted to his laughing sensei.

"That hurts," Iruka wined. He was still hurt because of his battle with Mizuki. He was going to tell the boy that the hard part of being a ninja had just begun, but he decided to tell it to the boy at the ramen place. He looked over to his side and saw the crippled body of Mizuki lying.

'_To think that Naruto has become so strong. The amount of chakra needed for that move is enormous. A normal person shouldn't be able to have that much chakra, especially a young one. Maybe the Kyuubi has something to do with it. I'll go ask the hokage about it later. I still can't believe that Mizuki has been lying to me all that time. He told me that he had met with Orochimaru. What would that guy do here? I am sure that he can giv__e us a lot of information. The Anbu must be coming here soon; they must have felt the chakra spike right now. Right now I am going to enjoy the rest of the night with Naruto. Looks like there is a lot of trouble brewing. I hope that you are ready for it, Naruto.' _Iruka thought while he was walking away with Naruto.  
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A dark figure was standing on the branch of a high tree. He was looking down as Iruka and Naruto were walking away. He jumped down and walked to the location where Naruto had performed the jutsu just now. He placed his hand on the ground and whispered something. His hand started glowing then.

"Interesting. He has come a long way. There might still be some hope left." The mysterious man said as the glowing stopped.

"I'd better report this…they are going to be very pleased when they hear this." He stood up and jumped into the trees again.

"Until next time we meet, Uzumaki Naruto."

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Whew. This chapter became longer than I thought. I was aiming for around 4000 words, but now it is around 10.000. I actually liked the way this chapter turned out. I tried to stick to the manga as much as possible, I just added some stuff.

I added the Naruto-Sakura parts, because I really believe that Sakura didn't hate Naruto. She never called him a monster and only calls him names or hits him when he is just annoying or when Sasuke is around. I think that she deep down thought the boy was pretty nice back then, she just thought that he was annoying, but let's be honest. He was annoying back then ;)

She wants to be popular just like Ino, because she was always bullied before and she followed Ino like a madman after she had helped her. She had become so insecure about herself because she was bullied and just wanted to be acknowledged by someone and she chose Sasuke. She became attracted by the handsome mysterious type just like the rest of the girls at her age and didn't even look at the inside. You will find that out in my next chapter.

She still likes Sasuke here in my story, but this will be a NaruSaku story. I dislike SasuSaku and I don't believe that it will ever happen. I will try to point out why in my story too. I want to show in this story how Sakura changes from the stupid lovesick girl to the smart strong woman.

As for the mystery man at the end of the chapter. Do you think you know who it is or not? This is one of the important aspects of my story. It is one of those parts that I added, but that are important later on.

Which other pairings would you like in the story? I know it is not that time yet, but it would make things easier if I knew where I should be headed.

Please tell me what you think. Reviews mean the world to me. I am open for suggestions and critique. I want to know if I am doing a good job on this. I don't have a beta reader or a good spelling checker, so there might be grammar mistakes. Please don't flame me for that. Please focus on my story:)

I hope that the next chapter will be up quicker next time. Until next time!


	3. More than pink hair

This chapter will be from Sakura's view. You will get to know their past and their dreams. The next few chapters will probably be a little shorter than the first two. In this chapter you will find out about Sakura's past, in the one after that you will find out about Naruto's past are and in the one after that you will find out about Sasuke's past. At the end of these three chapters, I hope to be around the timeskip.

This chapter takes place just after the second exam of the chuunin exams. Thus in the thirty days before the final exam.

I saw some reviews stating that the previous chapter was very alike to the manga. I just want to say that that was my intention. I wanted to show how Naruto became a ninja and needed to introduce Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura. First I wanted to do the mission to the wave and the chuunin exams too, but I decided to skip them. I am going to make some changes from the manga from now on, but the core of the story will remain the same.

"Hello": regular talking  
_'Hello'_: thinking  
'_**Hello'**_: Inner Sakura and Kyuubi talking

Don't forget to R&R ;)

**Enjoy**

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**More than pink hair**

Breathing hard, Sakura fell on the ground with a loud thud. She winced in pain and tried to stand up. But no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't find the strength in her body to stand up. Deciding that it was futile to even try she closed her eyes and let herself fall backwards. With a content smile on her face she just lied there for a moment.

She opened her eyes when she felt a sharp pain in her right leg. She pulled herself up and looked to her leg. There was a huge scrape there and she could see that it was bleeding right. She moved one of her hands to her kunai pouch and got out a white cloth. After cleaning the scrape with some water, she wounded the cloth around the wound to stop the bleeding. When she was done with that, she took the liberty to look over the rest of her body. There were bruises and small scrapes everywhere and she had never been so dirty as today before.

Just why had she be so stubborn. Just why had she decided to go training on such a beautiful day? Normally she would go shopping or something when the weather was nice, but today she had decided to train. Sakura was dead tired from that training. Even though she knew that she had very little stamina, she thought that she would have been able to train for at least a few minutes more. This was exactly why she was training now. She was sick and tired of being out of breath so fast, she hated it to be the weak girl that always needed protection.

She looked around and saw that she was the only one at the training grounds at the moment. This was very odd, because in the past she had always been the one to skip training while the rest of the team would be working hard to get stronger. Knowing that this had been a mistake that she would end up regretting the rest of her life she tried to stand up again, but to no avail. She fell backwards again and hit the ground hard. Training sure took a lot out of her.

She closed her eyes again, because she didn't have anything better to do at the moment anyway. She had become a lot stronger the last few weeks and she could feel it, but in order to make her dreams come true she had to become far stronger. She had come a long way already, but she knew that it was only the beginning. While thinking this she became a bit scared. What would the future hold if this was just the beginning?

She opened her eyes and washed her worries away. This wasn't the time to be worried about the future. She had to focus on the here and now and the future would come some other time. So much had happened already and if she had to think about the future too, she would definitely explode. Her inner self agreed with herself, showing her what it would look like when she exploded and Sakura let out a horrified look. There were body parts everywhere and she could see the horrifying looks on the faces of her parents.

"Okay, that wouldn't be a good idea. Let's save that for another time." She said with a big smile on her face.

She turned around in order to see the village. She had been born and raised here and she loved the village more than anything. Glancing around, she could see the tower of the hokage. The hokage was the strongest shinobi of the village. Thinking about the old man who was the current hokage, she just couldn't imagine that the guy was strong. She just saw him as another old man with a pipe in his mouth. It is true that the man was very nice and he had helped her in the past before, but she just couldn't believe that the old man was actually stronger as people like Kakashi.

Deciding that it would be best to not dwell at this subject forever, she continued looking around. Her eyes stopped when she saw a small building with a pink door. That place held a lot of memories for her. It was the place she was born and raised in. So much had happened while living in that house. Some of the memories were nice, but some of them she would rather forget.

She used to have a perfect life when she was little. She didn't have any friends, but she didn't mind that. She had loving parents and she enjoyed spending time with the two. Her father was a strong shinobi and he was away on missions a lot. Her mother always told her that he had become a jounin at a young age and that he was well known in the village because of his huge chakra reserves. Sakura hadn't known what it meant when she was young, but she did understand that it was something to be proud on.

When her father used to be away, she always had her mother to be with. Her mother was a beautiful woman with pink hair and she was the most caring person she had ever known. Her mother didn't have a job, but she has helped the village a lot by advising the hokage about important matters. The woman was considered one of the smartest people in the village, so the people always looked up to her too. She had been a shinobi in the past too, but had to end her career when Sakura was born. Most kunoichi followed the same path, because they want to be there for their children.

So most of the days she would end up playing with her mother after returning from school. She didn't like to go to school though. It wasn't because class was boring. She liked to learn new things. In school she learned about flowers, about life and about kunoichi and she loved it. Her mother had always told her stories about how the fourth hokage had defeated the demon fox and Sakura was taken back by the story. She too wanted to become a strong ninja, so she did everything she could in order to learn as much as possible. Reading was one of her greatest hobbies, so that wasn't a problem too.

But going to school meant that she would have to be in contact with other people too. This was the part that she didn't like. The other kids had always bullied her because of her big forehead and her pink hair. It was true, she had a big forehead, but that isn't a reason to bully something, right? That's what she was telling herself over and over though. The other kids seemed to think that it was a good reason…

But she didn't mind too much. So what if she didn't have any friends, so what if everyone bullied her. As long as she had her mother and father everything would be alright. Those two were her pillar of strength. The days went by very fast and she learned a lot about being a kunoichi. But the bullying became worse every day too. They saw that she was trying to ignore the bullying and this only spurted the bullies on to take it even further.

The bullies then started to insult her parents. Sakura couldn't take this. Her parents meant more to her than anything and she wouldn't let them get insulted. So she started to get into fights every now and then to protect her family's honour, but to her shame she was always beaten by the other girls. So she would end up coming home with a bloody lip or a thorn dress. But her mother and father were always there for her when this happened. They took care of her and gave her smiles and loved her. That was all she needed at that time.

Her parents took her to places she never went before too. Her father knew a lot of places outside the village and he took her and her mother every so often to those places. He had connections outside the village and he would always meet up with them when we went somewhere. Somehow those people knew where they were going, because no matter where she and her parents would go, those people were there too.

But she didn't mind. The people were very nice and she had a lot of fun with them. They told her that they were from the hidden village of cloud and that her father had saved them from death one day. Since then the ninjas and her father had become the best of friends. Her parents were very distant though when they met up with this people. She didn't know why, but she didn't mind either. It were good times back then.

Eventually though she had to go to bed. She was still able to hear them talking though and she could tell that they would talk about more serious matters after she had gone to bed. One day she walked in the room, because she had to pee and her father had become so mad at her then. She didn't know what was so important that she couldn't hear it, but she decided to not think about that.

So the days went by and she was so very happy with her fun life. Sure, she didn't have friends, but she was one of the only kids who had gone outside the village before becoming a ninja. Too bad that nobody wanted to hear her stories.

But then something happened what would change her life forever. Her father was sent on a mission with three other ninjas. When she had asked what kind of mission it was, her father had told her that he couldn't tell her, because it was an important mission. Sakura's father said goodbye to her and her mother before he left and he told them that he would be back later.

But her father didn't return. Sakura and her mother waited and waited for her father to return, but even after three weeks he hadn't returned. Her mother sent Sakura to school, even when she didn't want to, because her mother knew that they had to continue living their lives. She told her that her father would return to them someday. Sakura complied and went to school every day. The bullying got worse and Sakura would get in even more fights.

Then one day she and her mother were called. They had to go to the hokage, because he had important news for them. They knew what this would be about and hurried to the tower with all the speed they had. The hokage then told them that a patrol squad had found the body of her father in a small café of a small village. His team mates had been found dead too and they had all been killed by kunai.

Sakura could still remember how her mother broke down then. She had tried to comfort the woman with everything she had, but she couldn't even keep her own tears from falling. Her father had meant so much to her. He was supposed to be invincible; he wasn't supposed to die in a mission. He was supposed to be there for her. Those had been her thoughts then and sometimes even now she hates the man for leaving her and her mother like that.

Life had never been the same again. School became harder and harder and she just wasn't able to focus. Her grades lowered and she skipped school a lot. The bullying became even worse too and for a time she thought that she couldn't take it anymore. Thank god for her mother being there for her. Although she wasn't the same person as before, her mother would always come through for her.

Her mother still took her with her to meet up with her father's friends from outside the village from time to time. But most of the times they would go there when it was always bedtime, so she wasn't able to talk to them much.

Sakura was broken from her thoughts when she heard a loud noise from somewhere behind her. She looked around, but didn't see anything. That was until she was covered by a big shade. She had never seen a shade that big and decided to look up. Her eyes widened when she saw a big frog in the air. The frog fell down again and she didn't hear anything again.

"What the hell was that?" She just said out loud.

She had never seen something like that before. She knew that there was something as summoning, but it was just impossible for a frog to grow that big, right? After shaking her head she let out a big sigh. She had been training a lot. Maybe she was starting to hallucinate because of chakra exhaustion. She decided that that had to be it and turned to the village again.

After a sigh she continued scanning the area until she stopped at a small park in the centre of the village. She smiled, because that place had a special place in her heart. It was a beautiful place full of grass, trees and flowers and by just entering the park you could smell all those beautiful flowers. The place was truly fascinating. The place had become precious to her, because she had made her first real friend there.

She had once again skipped school one day and had gone to the park to think about things. It was a beautiful place and she loved it. It had actually been one of the best days in a while for her. That was until she saw three girls coming her way. One of them was one of the most popular girls in school. Sakura didn't understand why, because the girl had purple hair for crying out loud. If pink hair was already bad, then purple hair had to be hell. But somehow the girl had become the leader of the other girls and it had been a fact that the purple snob didn't like Sakura, so the rest followed her.

She acted like she didn't know that the girls were coming and just looked another way. The girls stopped right in front of her, but she didn't turn to look up, hoping that they would just walk away. When the girls didn't talk to her, she started to get worried. When she did finally look, she saw that the purple haired girl was holding a finger in front of her forehead. She pushed the finger against it and Sakura fell down. The girls disappeared then, laughing hard and Sakura was left crying.

That's when she saw another girl coming her way. She had blond hair and beautiful eyes. It was one of the other girls from her class. The girl was almost as popular as the purple haired girl and she cursed her luck. Hadn't they picked on her enough today? But to her surprise the girl didn't call her names. She just looked at her forehead and gave her a smile. The girl said that she was called Ino and that she had a gift for me. She had been so surprised then.

When she came to the park the day after that, Ino was already waiting for her and gave her a red ribbon. The girl then told her that she shouldn't hide her forehead, because that would only make the bullying worse. After that Ino helped her to get more popular and she became happy again. She had finally made a friend. She followed Ino in everything the girl did. So when Ino fell in love with a guy named 'Sasuke', so did Sakura.

Their rivalry over Sasuke might have weakened their friendship over time, but Sakura knew that Ino was still one of her best friends even now. She sighed, because she knew that it had been so stupid to let a boy interfere with her friendship with the girl.

Sakura was surprised when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around to see who it was and was surprised to see that it was no other than her own team mate. She was surprised to see though that he was pretty beat up. His clothes were torn, he had small wounds almost everywhere and she could see that he was breathing hard.

"Naruto?"

The boy turned to the sound and his face immediately lit up. "Hey, Sakura-chan! I didn't know that you were here."

"Yeah, I have been here for a while now." She said while looking over the village again.

Naruto walked over to her and that's when he saw how beaten up the girl was. "Are you alright, Sakura-chan? Have you been fighting? Has someone attacked you? Where did the bastard who did this to you go?"

Sakura couldn't help but laugh when she heard that the boy made up all those things. "Don't worry, Naruto. I have been training here today, so that's the reason why I look so beat up." She turned to him and when she saw that the boy relaxed again she gave him a smile. "It is nice knowing that you are so worried about me though."

Naruto became beef red and quickly looked the other way. "Haha, well of course I am worried about you."

Sakura just let out a content smile and turned to the village again. "So how is the training going? I figure that that's the reason why you look so beat up, right?"

"It is going great, Sakura-chan! I think I am able to defeat that hyuuga bastard now." He said with a confident smile on his face.

Sakura just closed her eyes. "That's good to hear." In truth she wasn't so sure that the boy next to her was able to beat the hyuuga prodigy, but she didn't tell him that. He was the number one ninja in surprising people, so she didn't give up on him yet.

There was a long silence after that, but it was a comfortable one. Both were sitting next to each other now and they enjoyed the view. Sakura was very surprised by this. The boy next to her could actually be silent for a while. But she hadn't seen the boy for a long time and had wanted to talk to him some more.

"So, what is on your mind, Sakura-chan? You have been quiet for a long time now." He said while he gave her a little smile.

Sakura who was surprised that the boy had seen right through her sighed before answering. "I have just been thinking about everything that has happened until now, you know? I think that I wouldn't be the person I now am without everything that happened." She said with a serious look on her face.

"You say it. So much has happened lately and I have changed so much. I am really happy that it all happened. It all began when team 7 was created. I still remember how happy I was that I was teamed up with you." He said with a smile.

"Yeah. It all happened that day, didn't it? I was a little disappointed at first when I heard that I was teamed up with you. I was glad that Sasuke-kun came in the team too, though" She said looking to the sky, thinking of what to say next. She glanced to her side to see that the boy had a sad look on his face now. She hit herself, because she knew that she had said something harsh to him. "But now I know that I was wrong."

This earned her a confused look from the boy. "I mean, I never hated you or something, but I used to think that you were so annoying and weak. I am glad that you proved me wrong. Sure, you can still be stupid, weak and annoying at times, but I have learned to see underneath the obvious. You are okay, Naruto." She said with a smile.

The boy's smile grew really wide then and she didn't think that she had ever seen the boy smile so much. She had seen his smiles a lot of times, but this one was exceptional. _'Why can't Sasuke-kun give me such a smile sometimes?' _She thought.

"Thanks a lot, Sakura-chan. That really means a lot to me. You are really the nicest person I know."

This confused Sakura a lot. She just called the boy okay and then he tells her that she is the nicest person he knows. She just couldn't believe that. She had treated him like dirt whenever Sasuke was around. How could that boy think of her so nicely? She decided to ask that question some other time, because she didn't want to mess up this comfortable moment.

"You remember that stupid bell test that Kakashi-sensei made us go through?" She said with a smile. "I couldn't do anything then. I was only searching for Sasuke-kun the whole time. I can still remember that I fainted because of a obvious genjutsu. I really was an awful ninja back then."

"Kakashi-sensei was just far better than us. I couldn't even touch him with any of my kage bunshin back then. At least you weren't so stupid to try and eat lunch. I was such a fool then." He said with a grin.

Sakura had to laugh then. "Yeah, that really was stupid. You were tied to the log and looked so stupid back then."

"But then something really nice happened." Naruto said with a blush on his face.

Sakura didn't understand what the boy meant and gave him a confused look. But when she saw Naruto's blush everything came back to her. She clenched her fist and hit the boy on the head. "I told you to not talk about that anymore!" She said with an angry look on her face.

"Sorry, sorry." He said with a big grin on his face, which quickly disappeared again. "But then the action really started."

"Yeah, the mission to the wave…"

It had been their first real mission. Sure, they had done a lot of D-rank missions before, but those kind of missions didn't have the right to be called missions. You just had to walk dogs or catch cats. Those missions were really easy, but then they finally got their fist C-rank mission.

"It is your entire fault that we got that mission, you know." Sakura said with a serious look on her face.

It was true. They had only gotten the mission, because the third hokage was getting sick and tired of an annoying Naruto. He gave them the C-rank mission in order to make the boy quiet down.

"But we have become a lot stronger on that mission. And we have got to know a lot of people while we were there." He said while looking off in the distance.

"Yeah. That is true. Deep down I am really happy that we went on that mission. Because of those bastards Zabuza and Haku we have almost been killed, but we have become stronger because of them too. I can still remember how you and Sasuke rescued Kakashi-sensei from that water prison. I was really impressed with you two then, you know." She said while looking him in the eyes.

'_I was really taken back by your__ determination that time. And I also saw that you can actually smarter than me at times. Although I am never telling you this.' _She thought while still looking him in the eyes. Those eyes were the only thing he had over Sasuke. He had such beautiful eyes.

"Thanks a lot, Sakura-chan. But you are really something else too. You were the only one who could walk up the three in one go. You are really great with chakra-control. I wish that I could be so good at it."

'_Yeah and that is about the only thing I am good at. Sasuke-kun nearly died on the mission, because I was too weak to help him.' _She sighed and glanced to her side when she saw that the boy next to her was standing up.

"Well, it is time for me to go home. I am so tired and I just want to go to bed. Need to train tomorrow again too, so I am going to need my rest, eh. Are you going home too? We could walk back together if you would like that?" He said with a blush on his cheeks.

Sakura wanted to go home too, so she nodded. She saw that the boy made a peace sign and she didn't understand. After standing up they made their way to the village again. It was getting darker by the minute and Sakura couldn't help but thinking about the dark things that happened in the chuunin exams.

The first exam had been pretty easy for her. It had been a written test and she was one of the most intelligent people in the village. The final question was different than the others. If you got it wrong, you would be a genin forever. But they gave you a chance to back down and try again next time. The only thing you needed to do was raise your hand. She still remembered how she almost raised her hand, because she feared that Naruto didn't had the courage to do it. Naruto wasn't the most intellegent boy in the world and he always failed written tests. She knew his dream and although she thought it would be impossible for him to accomplish the goal; she didn't want to see it crushed. Naruto proved her wrong that day again by slamming his hand on the table hard and telling everyone that he wouldn't back down. They passed the exam and headed to the forest of death for the second one.

She now knew why it was called the forest of death. So much had happened in there and most of the things she would rather forget. The encounter with the creepy snake guy named Orochimaru still scared her. If it wasn't for Naruto, he would have killed Sasuke and her on the spot. The boy now next to her had fought the man and lost, but still did some damage nonetheless. After that Sasuke fought the man and got bitten in the neck by the eerie man. He left a mark on Sasuke's neck and disappeared.

She had to take care of those two then, because they were both out cold. When she was attacked by the sound team and even Lee, who came to help her, was defeated and the enemy got hold of her hair, she had finally made up her mind. She had always been protected. First by her parents, then by Ino and now finally by Lee, Sasuke and Naruto. She vowed that she would be there for them from now on. She would help and protect them just like they had always done for her. She wouldn't let them get hurt any longer.

She then cut her hair in order to get free and then fought the sound ninjas. She had lost, but she had shown that she would do everything to protect those important to her. When Sasuke finally woke up she had been so happy at first, before she saw his new power. His chakra had been so dark that day and the look on his face had been truly evil. He had black marks on his body too. She had never been so scared before in her life and just wanted to run away.

After Sasuke had defeated the sound ninjas, he was about to kill them. Although Sakura had been scared, she had vowed to be there for him, so she had gathered all of her courage and embraced the boy to calm him down. She had wanted to hug the boy so badly before, but not like that. They boy calmed down, after giving her a look filled with hate, and the marks disappeared. She hadn't seen the marks again and Kakashi had said that it would be okay, but she couldn't help but worry, even now.

She now glanced over to Naruto and saw that he still had that stupid grin on his face. Should she tell the boy next to her about the marks? Even though Sasuke had told her not to, she wanted to tell the boy next to her so badly. Naruto would be able to help their other team mate. In the end she decided not to and wait for a better chance. She didn't want to worry the boy next to her before the final exam. He wanted to show everyone how strong he had become so badly.

Sakura had acknowledged the boy some time ago now, but she knew that a lot of people didn't know how strong he really was. He was always called the 'dead last' and the other genin used to look down on him, but after the fights in the chuunin exam most of them had changed their mind. She hadn't known too before she was teamed up with the boy, but now she knew that she needed to look underneath the underneath. She had even cheered the boy on during his match with Kiba. Nobody would have expected that from her and she still did it. People could change and Naruto and she were the living proof.

Sasuke had won his match too, but Kakashi took him somewhere after that. He had told her that the boy was alright, but she was worried nonetheless. She hadn't seen the boy or her sensei after that and was afraid that someone was out to kill him. Someone like that ninja from the sand, Gaara. He had crippled Lee for life with his moves and if Gai hadn't intervened, he would have killed Lee for sure. And Sasuke had to fight that ninja next. The sand ninjas were all very distant and they all had evil smirks on their faces. She didn't know why, but she was feeling very down now.

It must have been apparent in her face too, because Naruto gave her a worried look. "Are you okay, Sakura-chan?"

"I am fine, Naruto. I was just thinking about Sasuke-kun. I…I haven't seen him since the exam and he don't even know if he is alright. What if something has happened to him?" She was getting very worried now.

She was shocked when the boy next to her put a hand on her shoulder. "Sasuke will be alright, Sakura-chan. He is a tough one. He will come back." He said while flashing her that million dollar smile.

Sakura couldn't help but smile. Somehow the boy always managed to make her worries go away. She put her hand over his and squeezed it a bit. "Thank you, baka."

They walked further after that and finally reached her house. Sakura walked to the door and unlocked it. She glanced over her shoulder one more time. "Thanks for the walk home, Naruto. I really needed that. Good luck with your training and I will be seeing you at the third exam, okay. I will be cheering for you at the exam."

She wasn't lying. Talking with the boy had helped her a lot and because of him she had remembered her dream again. Her dream to be seen as a strong girl who didn't need protection. She wanted to be the one to protect her friends with her power. And he was one of them. He had helped her so much in the past and it was payback time. That was the reason why she had gone to the training grounds this day.

He, Sasuke and Kakashi had made a special place in her heart. Sure, she wanted Sasuke to be more….although she wasn't sure anymore after what had happened in the forest, but she was happy now. She only hoped that everything would be the same after the exam. She wanted things to be like they were before the chuunin exams. The loud and smiling Naruto. The silent, but not scary Sasuke-kun, a weird Kakashi-sensei. This was all she wanted.

"Sakura-chan, How about a goodnight kiss?"

Okay, there would be one thing she wanted to change.

**Slam**

"You annoying baka! You just had to ruin it again, did you?!" She said before slamming the door shut.

Naruto turned around and headed towards home. He was very confused. What did he do wrong this time? He only asked for a kiss from the girl he had loved so long. He knew that it wasn't a smart question, but she didn't have to react like that. He figured that she was still in love with the bastard. He cursed his luck and walked through the streets of Konoha with a big hump on his head.

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**AN:**I know, the chapter is shorter than the other ones, but I just wanted to show you Sakura's youth and a quick glance at what happened between this chapter and the previous one. The things that happened in her youth will come back later in my story. I know that I skipped the chuunin exams, but everyone knows what has happened anyway. Sakura likes Naruto here as a friend and nothing more, although their friendship is growing. I tried to make this chapter a little NaruSaku-like and I hoped that I did a good job. I will change the coming events a bit, but the result will be the same as in the manga. The next chapter will mostly be from Naruto's point of view as this one was for Sakura. In the next chapter the story will continue and there will be action. I think there will be two or three chapters until the timeskip.

And please keep reviewing. It means a lot to me.

Until next time!


	4. Control

I see that I have forgotten to put the disclaimer up the first few chapters. I should shame myself.

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto****. That right belongs to Kishimoto-sensei.**

Well, I am back again with a grand new chapter. I said that this chapter would be about Naruto's past, but I didn't get to that yet. Hell, I don't even think that I will get to that in the next chapter. I have got so much to write before that. I have decided to give my own twist on the sound/sand war. I don't want to spoil what is going to happen this chapter, so you will just have to read it :D

This chapter takes place a few days after the previous chapter.

I got about one or two reviews last chapter and that surprised me a lot. Was the chapter so bad? Please tell me, because maybe I can improve my writing that way. Reviews mean a lot to me, so please tell me if you liked it or if you have critique. I am open for new ideas too, so if you have something on your mind, let me now;)

I hope that this chapter is good enough. I wrote it during the spare time I had….and that wasn't much. I hope that you enjoy the chapter.

"Hello": regular talking  
_'Hello'_: thinking  
'_**Hello'**_: Inner Sakura and Kyuubi talking

Don't forget to R&R ;)

**Enjoy**

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**Control**

Standing on one of the highest tree branches of the big tree, Naruto was able to oversee a lot of the favourite village. The village was crowded, because the finals of the chuunin exams would be upon them soon. Most people that came to watch the exams were already in the village and according to Jiraiya most of them had come from the hidden village of sand. Even the kazekage was supposed to show up. He trembled at the thought that there were now even more shinobi in the village like that Gaara fellow.

**Crack!**

Naruto heard the sound and he knew that it wasn't good. He looked down and raised an eyebrow. Wasn't he supposed to be standing on a tree branch right now? Then why was it gone? Even though he was a shinobi, he wasn't able to fly. So he did what would happen to everybody who was standing in nothing but air…he started falling down.

"You have got to be kidding me! Why did it have to break at a time like this!?"

Jiraiya stood up slowly while stretching out his arms. Letting out a yawn, he started to look around. Everything was a bit unclear at the moment. He could see that he was sitting under a big tree, but he didn't know why he was there. His eyelids were still heavy as he had just woken up because of a loud scream. And he was having such a great dream too. A lecherous grin started to appear on his face as he thought of what was about to happen in his dream.

**Snap!**

"Damn it! That hurt!"

Now there was that scream again. Just where did it come from? He was sure that he didn't imagine it. And there was another sound too. Was it the sound of a tree branch breaking? As a shinobi he had to be able to distinguish sounds from another, because that might save his life in a life or death situation. When he heard the sound again, he was sure of it. Tree branches were breaking. And what would be the most logical place to find tree branches: trees. Knowing that he was standing under a tree, he looked up, hoping to find out where that sound was coming from.

"What's that?" He said with a frown on his face. Something was coming his way and it was coming fast.

Naruto hit another tree branch it just like the rest it broke too. Why did he have to climb all the way to the top? The tree was very big and there were branches everywhere. This was going to leave some scars later. He looked down and saw that his teacher was awake again. Even better, he was looking towards him.

'_Thank goodness, Ero-sennin is going to catch me. I am going to hear him laughing all day because I fell out of a tree, but it is better than hitting the hard ground at this speed.' _Naruto thought while falling. The man was getting bigger and bigger and he knew he was almost there. He closed his eyes and waited to be caught.

Jiraiya saw the blur getting bigger and bigger and he just couldn't make out what it was. His eyes widened when he realised what it was. This had happened to him many times before. "Shit, it's bird crap!" He shouted while jumping out of the way.

There was a loud sound and the dust from the ground was up in the air. The frog tamer waved the dust away with his hands and walked forward. His eyes widened when he saw the huge crater in the ground. "What the hell!?"

Bird crap wasn't supposed to leave a crater right? And the crater had the form of a human being too. That wasn't normal, was it? The dust now completely disappeared from the crater and he had to raise his eyebrow when he saw something orange in the crater. _'Orange bird crap?'_

He picked the orange stuff up to see the bird crap up close. He had seen a lot in his long life, but he had never seen something like this before. "Let's see, orange, blue, yellow. This isn't bird crap, that's for sure. Now why does this look so familiar?"

"Let me go, Ero-sennin!!!"

Jiraiya dropped it and took a few steps back. There were only two people in the world who called him like that. One of them was dead, so this could mean only one thing. "Naruto?"

The boy stood up and hit the frog hermit on the head. "Why didn't you catch me, Ero-sennin! I could have died, you know?!"

The sannin couldn't help but grin. "Sorry, sorry. I mistook you for some bird crap."

Something snapped inside of Naruto now. He knew that something was wrong with his teacher, but this…He was sure that he didn't look like bird shit. Was the man making fun of him? Of the man who was going to become hokage of the village hidden in the leaves? Jumping up, he hit the man on the head again. "You senile old fool!"

Jiraiya was laughing like he had never before.

"Stop laughing Ero-sennin! This isn't funny!"

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Naruto sat down on the ground. He had bandaged his left arm. He needed to do it to stop the bleeding. Why couldn't he have a normal teacher? One who would have just caught him? It had probably already healed now because of his special healing powers.

Training for such a long time was certainly taking its toll now. It was way past lunch time already and he had been training since this morning. Normally that wouldn't be a problem for the boy, but the training he had to do was very boring. The only things he was allowed to do were water walking and tree climbing.

"Ero-sennin, I don't want to do this training anymore!" He said with a boring face. After that he let out a long yawn and fell with his back on the ground with his hands behind his back. He closed his eyes and was getting ready to sleep. Nothing could be more boring that doing something you were already very good at.

The white haired man sighed and hit the boy on the head. "How many times have I told you not to call me that anymore, you baka! You should be glad that I am training you, you know. I could just walk away."

"But Ero-sennin!" Naruto whined. "You have already taught me the summoning jutsu. I am strong enough to beat everyone now! Why do I have to do stupid chakra control training? I hate this so much!"

Jiraiya shook his head. Nothing could get through that hard head of his. "Haven't I told you this more than a thousand times about now? Your chakra control is very bad. Why do you think that I wanted to teach you how to walk on water?"

"Because it is pretty funny. Who would have imagined that I could learn how to walk on water! I had only seen this on television before. I always thought that the faked it, but now I know that they could really do it." Naruto replied with a big smile on his face.

"No, you fool!" Jiraiya hit the boy on his head now. "Don't you ever listen to something I say?"

Naruto could feel the bump on his head. The man had hit him on the head more than once today and it was getting really painful. Sure, he was used to being hit by Sakura, but somehow that didn't hurt so much anymore. If Sakura hit him, he would feel pain, but happiness too. A blush started to appear on his face when her name came to his mind. He shook his head and walked over to the sannin.

"Then why did you learn my how to walk on water, Ero-sennin?!" Naruto asked while jumping around the white haired man like and hyperactive kid of five years old.

Jiraiya couldn't take it anymore. The boy was being so annoying today. "Just calm down for a while will you?!"

The spiky haired boy stopped jumping around for a while. The man in front of him was getting really pissed off right now. He sat down with his legs crossed and took this chance to rest for a bit again.

"Jeez, can someone tell me why I am doing this again!" The white haired sannin said after letting out breath. "But as I was saying. The water walking was about the same as the tree climbing that Kakashi taught you. You remember that one, do you?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, I can still remember how many times I fell out of that tree. That was really painful! I can still feel the bumps on my head."

Jiraiya smiled now. "Haha, that's good for you, kid. Now, how were your team-mates faring with the tree walking?"

Naruto sighed and turned around to hide his blush. "Sakura-chan was much better than me and she made it up in one go. But that's Sakura-chan for you, she really is amazing." He said in a dreamy state.

No matter how much the boy tried, he wasn't able to hide his blush and Jiraiya could see through it perfectly. "You really like that Sakura-chan of yours, don't you." The man said with a grin on his face.

Naruto turned around very quickly and saw the man grinning at him. "Yeah, she is something special. It is too bad that she only sees that bastard as potential lover. And to make it even worse, Sasuke doesn't even look at her and it is making her sad. I am going to kick his ass when I see that bastard again!"

Jiraiya's lips curled into an honest smile. It was great to see young love again. Even when the girl didn't see him, he still wanted her to be happy. He ruffled his hand through the yellow hair, which infuriated the boy a bit. "What's the deal, Ero-sennin?!"

"You just remind me of someone." He turned around and walked away. "Don't give up on her..." He almost whispered.

"I won't. That's a promise! I never give up. That's part of my ninja way!" The boy answered to his surprise.

Jiraiya grinned one more time before he sat down on a rock. They had been training inside one of the forests surrounding Konoha, so there weren't any chairs available. "We are getting off track here, kid. So what about your other team mate?"

"Sasuke-teme," Naruto found the ground very appealing all of a sudden. "He was much better at the tree climbing than I was too. Sure, we completed it around the same time, but he was just much better at it. While I was very tired, he was still able to go on. I just can't take it! I need to get stronger than that bastard. That way he will finally acknowledge me and Sakura-chan might fall in love with me!"

Jiraiya nodded. This was exactly what he was expecting. When he had found the boy a few days ago…no that's not right….when the boy found him a few days ago, the boy seemed very bad with his control for some reason. He just thought that it was because he was a lousy ninja, but the boy did look familiar for some reason.

While the boy was learning how to walk on water, it was apparent that something was wrong. When he called the boy to come over and mold chakra for him, the reason became clear. A very complex seal started to appear on the stomach of the kid. It was the same seal he had seen so many years ago. He didn't believe it at first, but when he took a good look at the boy, it was unmistakable: the blonde unruly hair, the bright blue eyes, the hyperactive personality. He was the son of Arashi. And that was the seal which was used to contain the demon fox.

The seal was made to contain the Kyuubi, but to protect the boy too. Jiraiya had been a seal master since a long time and he had taught Arashi everything he knew about seals. Because of the seal he would be able to tap into the power of the demon when he got older. But it was true too that his control over his chakra would get harder because of the seal too. His own chakra and the chakra of the fox had started mingling with each other the whole time, so it would be hard to control that.

But something was off. He had taken a good look then and saw that there was another seal around the one his father planted on him. It was seal with an uneven number, while the seal of the fourth was a seal with an even number. It was common knowledge that an even seal and an uneven seal don't mix together. They just oppose each other and the control would get even harder.

After that he had taken a good look on the added seal and his eyes had widened when he realised that this was a very difficult seal to perform: the five pronged seal. This was a seal to disturb one's chakra flow and it was used on extremely dangerous prisoners to stop them from escaping in the past. But the last ones who knew this seal were himself, Tsunade and Orochimaru.

He had figured that it had to be the last one, because he knew that Tsunade hadn't been in the village for a long time and he knew that the snake was somewhere close. It was one of the reasons why he himself was here. He had been monitoring his former friend for some time now and he had followed him to the fire country. He had also heard that he had encountered Anko and team 7 in the forest of death.

He had performed a technique of his own then to erase the five pronged seal. The boy had been able to walk on water after that. His control had become a lot better. That five pronged seal had messed up his chara system.

His control was improving very much, especially the last few days. After the boy had learned the summoning technique, although he could still get better at this technique, he had started to train the boy in chakra control. There was still much more room for improvement, but Jiraiya couldn't deny that he was impressed with the boy. He hadn't expected the runt to improve so fast.

"That's what I have been expecting, Naruto." He said while staring to the sky.

"What! Are you saying that I am weak!?" Naruto shouted after he stood up again. He ran over to the white haired sannin and continued to scream. "I have been training for so long and you say that I am weak! I am sure that I can defeat the bastard now!"

"Shut up!" Jiraiya said and to his surprise the boy really did shut up. "I didn't say that you are weak. I just said that I expected your control to be not as good as the control of your team mates."

This confused Naruto a lot. "What do you mean?"

The old man sighed and patted the empty space on the rock next to him. Naruto got the picture and sat down next to his new teacher. To his surprise the man grabbed two bars of chocolate out of his pouch and gave he gave one of those tasty bars to him. Naruto didn't wait for a second and took the bar with a smile on his face.

"You are pretty bad with your chakra control because of the seal on your stomach." He pointed his finger down to the place of the seal. "One of the most powerful creatures that has ever walked to planet was sealed within you, Naruto. This monster fox is made completely out of demonic energy. It is just impossible for a normal someone to be able to withstand all that demonic energy."

Naruto, who had just finished the chocolate bar, moved his right hand to his stomach with a downward face. "So, you are telling me that I am not normal."

"I am telling that the fox had to be sealed inside of a baby, so that the chakra of the beast and the chakra of the baby would be able to mix with each other. This way the human, in which the beast was sealed, in this case you, wouldn't be damaged so much because of the demonic energy."

Naruto frowned because he really had no idea what the man was talking about, but he nodded nonetheless. "So you are saying that I am not a monster?"

Jiraiya hit the spiky haired boy's head. He couldn't believe how stupid the boy was. He really had the IQ of the behind of a pig. "No, you are not a monster. But let's continue. Just listen for a while, okay?"

The boy nodded and kept his mouth shut. It took him all of his will power to stop talking for a while, but he knew that this was important. Although the man next to him was a real pervert, he really knew his stuff. He had already taught him how to summon, so why would he interrupt him now.

"Because you have two kinds of chakras in your body, they have begun to mix with each other. But because of this mixing, your control becomes very bad. The chakra of a demon wasn't meant to be controlled by a human body, so your body has trouble to accept that energy. Do you understand?"

The boy was lost in thought for a while and Jiraiya could see by looking at him that he was having trouble keeping up. His expressions were changing by the minute. "Yeah, I think I understand it somewhat, Ero-sennin. My body can't control the chakra of the fox, right?"

"Yeah, something like that. So in reality you are very good at your control. You are doing a very good job right now. I think that you would be as good as most chuunin with your control if it wasn't for the fox." He said with a smile on his face.

Naruto's lips curled into a big smile. He couldn't believe that the old man next to him was actually praising him. "Thanks a lot, Ero-sennin."

Jiraiya smiled now. "But your control needs to become even better now."

"Why? I can already walk on water and walk up the trees without breaking a sweat. I am wasting less chakra with my jutsus now too, so why do I need to get even better control now. I can increase my control a little every day with my usual training. There's no rush, right? You can better use this time to teach me an awesome new jutsu! Maybe the one that Sasuke-teme uses, that katon move." Naruto said with a big smile on his face.

"You fool!" Naruto was surprised by the outburst of his teacher. "Not everything revolves about new jutsus, you know! I am sorry to say this, but you are not ready to be learning elemental jutsus yet. To learn such moves, you have got to have control and intelligence. It takes a lot of work to learn a new jutsu!"

"But Sasuke can use a fire move. If he can use it then so can I!" Naruto screamed back.

"Sasuke is part of the Uchiha clan. That clan specialises in katon jutsus. They have an affinity for it. It is only natural that he would be able to learn such a move much easier than you. His parents must have taught him that before they died. And to tip it off, I have heard about this friend of yours. He is called a genius." He said with a serious expression on his face.

Naruto became sad when he heard this. His parents had probably helped Sasuke with his training. Sadness always overtook him when he started to think about his own parents. Were the still alive? Had they abandoned him when he was little or didn't they have a choice? Would they be proud of him? All of these questions dwelled in his mind all the time. He was able to contain his sadness most of the time, but when someone actually talked about parents, he lost his control and became sad.

Jiraiya saw that the boy became troubles because of his words and hit himself. He knew that the boy didn't have any parents. He put a hand on the shoulder of the boy and gave him a smile. "But luckily you have something that is more important than that."

Naruto raised his head when he heard this. "You have to power to never give up!" Naruto couldn't help but smile when he heard this. The man next to him was a pervert, but he was one of the nicest people he has ever known.

"So I was saying that not everything revolves around elemental jutsus. Most fights are decided by very small things like control, insight and luck. If you can control your chakra well enough, you would hold out much longer than your opponent. I can see that you have a lot of stamina and chakra, and because of the Kyuubi you have got even more. Think what you would be able to do with perfect control." The frog tamer said while looking towards the clouds.

Naruto was struck by awe. It was true that he had a lot of chakra and people who had seen him fight praised him for his endurance. With perfect control he would be able to make so many clones and he would be able to hold out even longer. "Alright, Ero-sennin, you have convinced me. We have got a few days left before the finals, so let's focus them on chakra control!"

Naruto jumped up from the rock and started to run towards the water. Jiraiya smiled, because the boy had come a long way since he met with him. Maybe it was time to teach him something nice. It would help with the chakra control training as well. He snickered, because he knew that he had exactly been the same as that boy once. He wasn't able to concentrate and he hated to do things he already could. Yeah, it was time for the next step.

"Naruto, come over here!" He shouted while using his hands as a megaphone.

Naruto turned around when he heard his name. He had just begun with his training and now the man was calling him back already. But he didn't complain. Almost anything was better than the boring training he was doing now. He started to walk back to the man sitting on the rock. "What's the deal, Ero-sennin?!"

"I thought it was about time to teach you something new. You have been doing such a good job that I think you are ready to begin this training. It is everything you just made a fuss about; I am going to teach you a new jutsu!" Jiraiya said with a smile on his face.

Naruto's eyes widened and a smile started to appear on his face. "Really!? You mean it, Ero-sennin?! But you just told me that I am not ready for that yet!"

"I told you that you are not ready yet for an elemental jutsu, but the jutsu that I will teach you isn't an elemental one. Watch closely, kid."

Naruto never took his eyes off the man who promised to teach him a new technique. He followed every movement; he listened to every sound he made. Naruto was ready for everything. He was already focusing his attention on the man's hands, because he would have to memorize the hand seals.

He was surprised when the man simply stretched out his right hand with his palm towards the sky. Naruto didn't understand what the man was doing, but kept his gaze locked on the hand nonetheless. The wind around his hand started to spin and Naruto was surprised when a small blue ball started to form above the man's hand. His eyes widened when he saw that the ball was getting bigger and bigger until it was as big as Jiraiya's hand.

Jiraiya now turned to the yellow haired boy with a smile on his face. "Now this is the 'rasengan'.

"Wow!" That was all Naruto was able to say. His jaw almost hit the ground and his eyes were still widened. He couldn't believe it. Chakra was visible on his hand and it was spinning extremely fast. He tried to touch the ball, but his hand was repelled by the strong winds around it.

"Looks pretty nice, doesn't it? Let me show you how powerful this technique really is." Jiraiya looked around and smiled when he saw his target. Walking towards a tree very close to him he used his free hand to make a hand gesture that was meant for the boy to follow him. The boy complied and sprinted towards the tree too.

When the sannin saw that his student had finally arrived he trusted his hand forward into the tree. "Rasengan!" The ball of energy went right through the tree and after a while it fell over. The ball disappeared and Jiraiya turned to the boy again with a big smile on his face. "This is the rasengan."

Naruto couldn't believe it. "Wow! That jutsu is so cool! It went right through that tree! Teach me how to do it! Teach me, teach me!"

Jiraiya was happy that the boy was glad to be learning a new technique, but the boy could have expressed his feelings on a somewhat softer tune. "Ok, now take a good look and listen well. I am going to explain this only once."

Naruto nodded and focused his eyes on the big man's right hand. "First you have to gather chakra in the palm of your hand. You remember what you did with the tree climbing exercise? You needed to gather the chakra at the bottom of your feet and that is the hardest place to gather chakra, so this should be pretty easy. But you have got to focus a lot of chakra there."

Naruto frowned, but nodded nonetheless. _'I will just pretend like I understand what he's saying for now.'_

"Then you make the chakra rotate. You need to pump a lot of chakra in this attack or else it will become useless." He said with a serious tone. "And then you will have to keep the chakra contained in the form of a ball. That's all there is to it. If you can do those three steps, then you will be able to perform the technique…in theory that is."

"That is so cool! Don't worry, Ero-sennin, this will be easy. I will master this technique quickly!" The boy said with a big smile on his face.

Jiraiya hit the boy lightly on the head. "So this technique is easy to master, isn't it? It took the creator of this jutsu about three years to complete it!"

Naruto's jaw fell on the ground now. "Three years! I don't have time to train three years for this move! I need to become hokage, so that everyone will acknowledge me!" The boy started running around the field of the training grounds with a worried look on his face.

"Don't worry kid, don't forget about me. I have learned it too and I have some tricks to learn it to you." Jiraiya said while grabbing something from his kunai pouch.

Naruto was surprised when the frog tamer suddenly threw something his way. Was it a kunai, or was it a shuriken? He was about to jump away when he saw what it was. He caught it with his two hands and raised one of his eyebrows. "A water balloon…"

Jiraiya grabbed another one and placed it on the palm of his right hand. "Yes, a water balloon. Now look closely. Remember the first two steps."

"Uhm, gathering chakra and making it spin, right?" Naruto said with confusion written all over his face.

"You're getting sharper by the minute, boy. Now look closely."

Naruto could see that the water was trying to find a way out, because he could see a lot of little bumps in the balloon and then suddenly the balloon exploded. "What the hell? What did you do, Ero-sennin?!"

"I just gathered chakra in the palm of my hand and I made it spin. The spinning caused the balloon to burst." The frog sannin said with a smile on his face. "This is the first step of the rasengan training. Try to break the water balloon in your hand by spinning chakra in the palm of your hand."

"Okay that will be so easy, Ero-sennin!"

Naruto placed the water balloon on his hand and started to focus his chakra. _'This is it. The chakra is in place. Now I have just got to spin it!' _He started to spin the chakra with all of his concentration. He could see that the water balloon was moving, but it just didn't seem to break. He dropped the balloon and sat down on the ground with a disappointed expression on his face. "It didn't work!"

"Don't worry, kid. You will get better at it. I have faith in you. This technique requires a lot of practise, so start practising!" Jiraiya said with a smile on his face, before turning around. "I will be back later to see if you have made some progress. Try hard and don't give up."

"What the hell! You're leaving! You are supposed to be my teacher. Can't you help me some more on this?" Naruto almost screamed when he saw the man walking away.

Jiraiya stopped in his tracks and glanced over his shoulder. "Don't you understand?! From now on you will have to do it by yourself! I can't help you with this any more than I already have. You will have to grasp this step by yourself or else you won't ever learn the technique. Try to figure something out for yourself. I am sure that you can do it. You just have to concentrate." He disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Naruto and the water balloon behind.

"That stupid pervert! He is probably headed towards the women's bathing house right now!" Naruto said before sitting down once more. "So I have got to figure something out, huh. Too bad that thinking is one of my bad habits…"

After trying it again a few times, he threw the water balloon on the ground again. Frustration was getting to him and he wanted to kill that sannin right now for letting him figure everything out by himself. But there was nothing to do about it. It was just him and the water balloon now. Speaking of which. He turned his face towards the balloon. "So can you help me?"

There was a long silence after that. The winds started blowing and all of the trees seemed to sweat drop. One single crow was flying in the sky at that moment, saying: "Idiot… idiot…idiot."

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The hokage was currently sitting behind his wooden desk, looking through some documents. The last few days had been very tiring, because there were a lot of preparations to be done. The chuunin exams would be upon them soon and Konoha needed to show the other countries that the village was ready to handle everything. Showing the other countries that your country is capable of handling something on this scale meant a lot of respect.

He let out a smile when he thought about the finalists. Most of them were from the village and those who made it were rookies. That would most certainly leave a great impression. The old man hadn't expected Naruto to go to the finals, but after seeing his match against Kiba he was sure that the boy would do fine. _'He's beginning to look like you more and more every day, Arashi.'_

Another reason why the village needed to look good was that the kazekage himself would be showing up. The man had agreed to come to Konoha in order to watch the finals. This was very strange, because normally the kage of the wind country wasn't the type to go to other countries in order to watch some battles. The only conclusion the old man could come to was that the kazekage was coming here to watch his own son fight the last uchiha.

Uchiha Sasuke had made it through the first and second exams, although it wasn't without troubles, and he would be fighting against Gaara of the sand in the first round of the finals. Sarutobi could still remember that shinobi of the sand. Something was wrong with that boy and the rest of the sand shinobi were acting kind of suspicious as well.

The Uchiha clan had always been a noble clan, famous for all of its great fighters. But since 'that' fatal day, there have been no more uchihas participating in the chuunin exams. That's the sole reason why so many people were coming to this year's chuunin exams. They wanted to see the legendary clan in action once more.

And then there was the last problem. The problem that had arisen during the second exam. According to Anko, who is a special jounin of the village, Orochimaru had returned to the village. The woman had told him that he had taken the face of a grass ninja and had infiltrated the exam in the forest of death. The snake sannin had fought her and had even let her live to her great confusion. He then supposedly told her that the village would fall by his hands, but hadn't told her anything else.

The old man sighed and opened on of the drawers of the desk in front of him. He pushed away some documents, before taking a frame out of the brown drawer. A tear almost escaped his eye when he looked at the photo. It was him in younger days. Still not grey and with a big smile plastered on his face. Around him he could see his students.

On his left was the small blonde girl with a smirk on her face. Tsunade was the granddaughter of the first hokage and so she had always been very close to the founder of the village. He himself had been taught by the first and second hokage and he held them both in great respect. After the man died, he had always vowed to protect and train the girl. He had even gone so far to ask the people in charge to add her to his team. She was a little spunky and pretty weak at first, but she grew out to be the strongest kunoichi the village has ever known.

In front of him was the white haired boy known as Jiraiya. The boy had always been a hard one to deal with. Being the pervert the boy was, he was always able to find himself trouble. Most of the time he would peek in the women's bathhouse and according to the boy he had never been caught. Sarutobi could still remember how the boy fell into all of his traps during the bell test. But he too grew into one of the strongest shinobi the world has ever known.

Then he looked to the last person in the picture. The man causing problems for him right now, Orochimaru. The boy with the pale face had always been a genius when it came down to fighting. Because of a weird look in his eyes nobody had ever been able to figure him out completely. Sarutobi sighed, because even when he was the boy's teacher he had known that the boy had something sinister around him. He had seen the dark look in his eyes. But he hadn't given up on the boy, hoping that his training would help the boy clear his mind. The village was in dire need of power and that little boy was able to grant it to them.

What a mistake that has been. Once the boy had come of age he started to get more and more distant from the others. The young man disappeared sometimes, only to return many weeks later. When the fourth hokage had been chosen a few years later he became even more distant. He vanished after the Kyuubi assault one day to never return again.

People started to go missing around that time too. Not only civilians, but ninjas too. This caused the council to panic a lot and a search was ordered. All the trails were leading to the same place. Sarutobi clenched his fist now and almost dropped the picture. They had found a hole in the ground of one of the training grounds around Konoha. After checking it out he went in with two anbu agents in order to find the culprit, but what he found hadn't been what he had been expecting.

Inside the dark depths of the hole was waiting for him no other than his own student. One of the people he had grown to care about. Orochimaru had smiled at him then with a sinister smile before getting ready to fight his own teacher. The man had defeated the two anbu that were with him within a mere second before jumping behind the one who taught him so much.

Sarutobi sighed now. He had made the biggest mistake of his life back then. He let the man go without a fight. It was his job to protect the village, so he had to bring back or even kill the man who had done so many terrible things. But after summoning the great ape Enma, he just couldn't fight the man. He wasn't strong enough to fight his own student. Orochimaru ran from the village and nobody had seen him since.

Putting the frame back in the drawer he let out a big sigh. If he just would have been stronger that day. Everything would have been different. Uchiha Sasuke wouldn't have the curse seal right now, the village wouldn't have to worry about getting attacked by a psycho. The village would have been much better of without him. A loud thud was heard after he slammed his hand on his desk with all the anger inside him.

"Damn it, why am I so weak! I don't deserve to be the hokage of this village." He said with an angry look on his face. Almost nobody had seen this side of him, but he couldn't contain himself any longer. He just had to get this out of his system. "Why did you have to die, Arashi? The village needed you and now still needs you!"

Looking up, he could see the pictures of the previous hokages. They had all did such a great job with the village. The first and second hokage had founded the village known as Konoha today and had both died at a pretty young age in order to protect it. Then he moved on to the fourth hokage who had protected the village from destruction when the Kyuubi attacked. And his fate had been death as well.

He now clenched his fist again. And the only hokage who had let the village down was still alive. He looked from the left picture to the right one with a determined expression on his face. "I am sorry for everything. I can't change the past, but I promise that I will protect this village with my life, just like you three taught me!"

Just then he heard some knocking on the wooden door of his office. He quickly turned around to sit behind his desk once again. He put some documents in front of him, so that nobody would ever find out what just happened in the room. "Come in!"

The door opened to reveal a tall man with some kind of hood on his head. The man had scars all over his face and he was wearing a long black jacket over his jounin vest. A serious expression was apparent on his face and this worried the hokage quite a bit. The man walked over to the desk and bowed in front of the old man.

"Please sit down, Ibiki." The Sarutobi said while blowing out some smoke from his pipe.

"Hai!" Ibiki sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk with a deep sigh. He put one f his hands in his pocket and revealed a few documents when his hand came out again. After checking if it were the right ones he laid the document on the desk.

"What is this?" Sarutobi asked with confusion.

"These reports are made by me. Mizuki has finally talked." The hokage looked even more confused now, but didn't get the chance to say anything. "After Naruto had defeated the traitorous chuunin, we had brought him to the dungeon to begin the interrogation. But for a long time we weren't able to get any information out of the man."

The hokage remembered the man now. This was the man that had let Naruto steal the scroll of sealing. The man who had been in contact with Orochimaru before. His eyes widened when he remembered the words of Anko. The snake was about to make his move and Mizuki might be the key. "Please continue."

"Hai. I had ordered my subordinates to continue with the interrogation while I was busy with the first and second exams of the chuunin exam. To my great dismay they too hadn't been able to get something out of the man." The scarred man said with a sad voice.

The hokage only nodded. It was too bad. It would have been very convenient if the traitor had told them something about the snake sannin. From his words the village would be able to prepare for an attack. He was about to pick up the documents when the special jounin in front of him began to speak again.

"But I didn't give up. I knew that the man held a connection with Orochimaru and after hearing what happened in the forest of death I couldn't give up. The safety of the village was at stake, so I did what was necessary. I called one of my greatest subordinates to help me." He started to smile now.

The hokage knew exactly who the man in front of him meant. "You mean…"

"Hai." The man said while nodding. "The best interrogator of the whole village, the man with the ability to look into one's mind, Yamanaka Inoichi."

The hokage was silent for a while now. The man in front of him only called that man if the village was at stake, because his way of getting information was not right. That man was able to slip in someone's mind and replay everything that he had ever seen or done. In some countries this kind of technique is strictly forbidden, but Konoha wasn't one of them.

The technique was only used in situations like this or in war times though. Although it was a very convenient technique, it was a very dangerous technique too. The jutsu could backfire anytime and the one who performed the jutsu could be stuck in the mind of someone else for eternity. The technique could also destroy the person on who the technique is performed if the caster would make a small mistake.

But the hokage knew that this was one of the times to use this jutsu. "So did he find something?"

Ibiki started to look very serious now. "He found a whole lot, hokage-sama. Everything is inside these documents. Please look at them now."

Sarutobi nodded and picked up the documents. He put his pipe down and started reading through the long report. Ibiki waited, not moving an inch. He knew what was inside of those documents and he knew that it wasn't pretty.

The hokage dropped the documents and they fell on the ground. His eyes were wide and anger was apparent in his face. "This can't be…"

It was silent for a while. The only sound that was heard was the sound of the wind outside.

Sarutobi suddenly stood up and turned to the window with his hands folded behind his back. "Please send out word for all the jounins in the village to come to the meeting room and get Jiraiya too. And make it fast. If this is true, we don't have any time to waste!"

"Hai!" The man then made a seal and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Sarutobi looked over the village from the window in his room with a determined expression on his face. "I swear that I won't let this village down again! I will protect this village even if it means my life!"

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Jiraiya was walking towards the training grounds again. His face was still a bit red. Today had been a good day for peeking. He hadn't known that there were so many beautiful women in the village of Konoha. He would have come back here much sooner if he had known that. All those wasted years…

When he entered the training grounds he was surprised to find the boy sitting under the tree with his eyes closed. Had the boy already completed the first step? That couldn't be, right? It had taken him much longer to complete this step. The water balloon was nowhere to be found either. "Have you completed it already?"

The boy opened his eyes and stood up with a big smile on his face. "You better believe it, Ero-sennin!"

The frog hermit grabbed another water balloon out of his pouch and threw it towards the boy. "Show me."

Naruto caught the balloon and gave the man a grin. _'Now this is my chance to prove that I am going to become hokage of Konoha.' _He laid the balloon of his hand and closed his hand. _'Now concentrate the chakra to the palm of my hand. There it is and now spin in all ways!' _He used his left hand to hit the water balloon at different places and the balloon exploded some time later.

"Yeah, I did it. How did you like that, Ero-sennin!" The boy jumped around and made the peace sign a few times too. Jiraiya was happy that he had really finished the first step already. He had figured out that he had to make it spin every way and not just make it spin in circles. Although he had to use his left hand too, he had done it and he was proud of the boy.

"You did great, Naruto. Now I can show you the second step."

He grabbed something out of his pouch again. Naruto was hoping for something more daring this time, but when he saw the small rubber ball, his hope fell. "A rubber ball?"

The perverted hermit threw the ball towards the boy and gave him a smile. "This ball is much stronger than the water balloon. This is basically the same training as the first step, but this time you have got to use more power. Try it."

Naruto frowned, but placed the rubber ball on the palm of his right hand nonetheless. He closed his eyes and started to focus his chakra. He suddenly opened his eyes and started to hit the ball at different places. Bumps were starting to appear, but the ball didn't explode. "What the hell? Why didn't it break?"

The old man laughed. "This is what I told you. In order to clear the second step you have got to have power. You need to focus more chakra in your hand. If you do that, then it will be easy to break it." He said with a smile on his face. _'Although it took me more than a week to clear this step…'_

He was about to say something else when he saw a puff of smoke next to Naruto. When the smoke cleared he could see a scarred man in a jounin vest and a black jacket over it. "Ibiki, what are you doing here?"

"Hokage-sama had summoned us, please come to the meeting room. It is urgent." And with that the special jounin disappeared as fast as he came.

The frog tamer turned to the young boy who was giving him a confused look. "I am sorry, kid. I have to go to some stupid meeting. I think it is very serious."

Naruto frowned, but understood that it was important.

"Just go home now, kid. It is getting pretty late and you are going to need your rest. Start with the second step tomorrow." The frog hermit said with a serious tone. "I will be going now. Later." He made a seal and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Naruto sighed, but he knew that the pervert was right. He was getting tired and he would need his sleep. He couldn't feel his right hand anymore because of the rasengan training. He just hoped that he would be able to move it again tomorrow. After stretching one more time, he began to make his way back to the village with a big smile plastered on his face. He was looking forward to dreaming about his dream girl again.

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The grassy floor of the training ground started to become black all of a sudden. Two figures jumped out of the hole and landed on their feet. They were both wearing black coats and they were hooded too. They were wearing black gauntlets and shoes too. The only things that weren't black were the chains that were hanging around their necks. The left one was tall and the right one was pretty short. To the right they could see the yellow haired boy walking to the village of Konoha.

"He is getting stronger and stronger, isn't he?" The tall one said while seeing the boy jump over in the trees.

The shorter one nodded and kneeled to look at a few flowers. "Yeah, he has come a long way, but it is still not enough."

"There is still time for him to grow. They aren't making their move just yet or should I say that they cannot make their move just yet. We still have a few years. Let's hope that he will be strong enough by then. If he isn't strong enough by then, then we will have no choice…" The tall one said while sitting down on a rock.

The smaller one sniffed in the scents of the different kinds of flowers. "Yeah…But I have faith in him. I have been following him for a while now and I believe in his power. He is determined to get stronger and I can see that he cares a lot for his friends. He is willing to set his life on the line for them...There is another one in the village right now too. That one looks pretty dangerous. He is very strong for his age, just like the boy, but I don't know if we can trust him."

"Let's just focus on the yellow haired one for now. We can't waste time watching two of them. That would only increase our chance of failing. And we can't fail, no matter what." The tall one said while looking up.

"Yeah, you are right."

"You really can't get enough of those flowers can't you?" The tall one said. "Every time that you don't have to do anything important, you are busy fumbling with flowers. I don't see what you see in them."

"Yeah, they remind me of my past." The small one mumbled while standing up again.

They suddenly felt a strong wind from the east. They looked at each other and nodded.

"Looks like the village is in for a lot of trouble. I think it is about time we left. We have a lot to do." The tall one walked over to the black hole. He was ready to jump in when he saw that the other one wasn't coming. He sighed and waited for the coated figure to come.

The smaller was staring to the village. Finally turning around, the figure in black coat walked over to the other one. After the tall one had jumped in the hole, the hooded figure looked to the village one more time. "Be safe."

The figure jumped into the hole and a few seconds after that the dark hole disappeared, leaving behind a quiet and peaceful training ground.

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**AN:** Phew, the chapter became longer than I had anticipated. I hope you liked it. Looks like Jiraiya has is scared of bird shit XD. Naruto has started his rasengan training. Don't worry, I won't write chapters full of Naruto trying to perform the rasengan. I made Sarutobi quite emotional about his mistake. I hope that you like that.

And does someone have any idea who the coated figures are?

I am going to make a poll for the pairing and I am going to continue this poll for a few chapters. Please tell me which pairings you would like.

Poll:

Ino: Chouji or Shikamaru or Kiba

Tenten: Lee or Neji

Hinata: Kiba or Shino or Sasuke

Temari: Shikamaru or not?

Hope to see you next chapter again. I hope to finish it soon. The action will begin in the next one and some NaruSaku again.

Until next time!


	5. Friendship

-1**Disclaimer: I don****'****t own Naruto. That right belongs to Kishimoto-sensei.**

Well, here's the new chapter. This chapter takes place right after the last one. Naruto just left the training ground.

To Kaiser Aldamon: nice guesses on who the cloaked people are. I don't want to say the big secret to everyone yet, but I have sent you a message. Thanks for voicing your opinion.

I was happy to see all the nice reviews. They really made me happy. Thanks for all of your input, guys! This really makes me want to write much more to give you. Please keep reviewing. I like to read them and I will try to answer questions if you have them. I am open for critique too. And if you want to have a idea to go with the story, don't hesitate to tell me:D

**Poll  
****Ino:**  
Chouji4  
Kiba0  
Shikamaru3

**Tenten:**  
Lee 3  
Neji4

**Hinata:**  
Kiba5  
Shino1  
Sasuke1

**Temari: **  
Shikamaru3  
Oc1

Looks like there are a lot of KibaHina fans reading this. Ino and Temari are fighting for Shikamaru:D

"Hello": regular talking  
_'__Hello__'_: thinking  
'_**Hello**__**'**_: Inner Sakura and Kyuubi talking

Don't forget to R&R ;)

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His hand found his way towards his heart. That feeling was unbearable. If that feeling had still been there this day, then he probably would have not been here anymore. No, that was wrong. He had wanted to end it already. He had even tried to, but he survived through all of it. He had then decided to give life a shot. Maybe there was something fun to do. Maybe it had something to offer. Maybe there was a purpose in life. Those used to be his thoughts when he was all alone.

He was broken out of his thoughts when he saw something turn around the corner. Sighing he stood still. It had been a few days since the villagers had tried something. Sure, the glares were always there, but sometimes they would leave it with that. But it couldn't help to be at your toes right? He was living in a village full of ninjas and many of them had the ability to give him a painful death.

His lips curled into a smile when he saw who the person in the shadow was. There were only two people in the whole village with pink hair like that. The person coming to him was pretty short, although she was still taller than him, but he knew who it was. He could smell the scent of strawberries too. There was no mistake. This was the person he enjoyed being with more than anything. The cutest girl in the whole village.

"Good evening, Sakura-chan!" He shouted while waving with his right hand.

Sakura, who was finding the ground very beautiful right now, jerked her head up after hearing her name. Blonde hair, orange clothes, blue eyes, there was no mistake. "Hey, Naruto." She said in a somewhat downward tone. She walked over to the boy at a very slow pace and gave him a small smile.

Naruto could see that the girl wasn't in a good mood. "So, why are you out here at this time, Sakura-chan? It is pretty late. Shouldn't you get to bed about now?"

When he saw that the girl was making a face indicating she was in pain, he took a good look at her. She was breathing hard and her clothes were a bit filthy. Then his eyes widened when his eyes reached the bottom side of her body. A giant scrape was located on her right leg and it was bleeding a bit. "Sakura-chan, what happened to your leg?!"

She shook her head and took another step. "It is nothing, Naruto. Let's just continue walking, okay."

After taking two steps she suddenly felt a lot of pain and moved one of her hands to her injured leg. She was surprised when she saw that the boy was kneeling in front of her with a worried look on his face. He was scanning her leg like his life depended on it. "Really, it is fine, Naruto. It just hurts a little bit."

"No! It's not fine!"

Sakura was surprised with his outburst and gave him an unbelieving look. She saw that he stood up and looked around the area. She could feel that he was angry. She was about to stand up when she suddenly felt his hand. She wanted to hit him for touching her, but didn't have the strength. Not in the mood for objecting, she complied and let the boy help her to a small bench.

What surprised her even more was that he grabbed her leg after sitting down. She was about to scream something to him, but he put a finger on her lips. "I am going to fix your leg."

He laid her leg down on his lap and started to search for something inside his kunai pouch. Sakura was blushing like crazy because of the contact. A real boy had touched her leg like that. That was the first time that something like that ever happened and she hated to admit it, but it felt really good to be touched by a boy like that.

'**This feels so good! His hands are so warm and his touch is so gentle. I can get used to this! Shannaro!' **Inner Sakura said with a lecherous grin on her face.

'_Yeah, this really feels good. Hey, no! I am not a pervert. I don't like this. And it's Naruto for crying out loud. Why don't I just push him away?'_

Her inner self was really enjoying herself. Finally she was getting through to the girl.**'****I dunno****…****Maybe because deep down you really are a pervert!****'**

'_There's no way that I am a pervert!'_

'**Then why are you blushing right now? And why didn't you push him away?' **

'_I…I don't know…'_

'**Maybe it is because you like Naruto deep down.' **Her inner persona said with a devilish smile on her face.

'_No way! I mean, we have been getting a bit closer, but I don't see him like that! The only person I like is Sasuke-kun.'_

'**Sasuke-kun is handsome and he's got a nice ass!' **Sakura had to sweat drop after hearing this and she started to blush even more too when she started to think about Sasuke's ass. **'But, he isn't nice or caring like the kid next to you now.'**

Sakura didn't know what to say to that. She wanted to think of an excuse, but she just couldn't find one. It was true. Sasuke was really handsome. While Naruto did have a cute face, the hyperactive boy was hardly as good looking as the raven haired boy. But Sasuke had never even spoken a word to her. Thinking about it, she wondered if the boy even saw her standing. He only thought about himself and never helped someone.

She could still remember her match in the chuunin exams against Ino. Who was the one that was encouraging her? Who was the one who saved her from Ino's jutsu? Who was the one to praise her when she did well with the tree climbing? The boy was almost the total opposite from Sasuke, but still. She couldn't deny that he had something…special.

It wasn't visible on the naked eye though. She was probably one of the only people alive who knew this nice side of Naruto. Before she was teamed up with the boy, she had always thought that the boy was just annoying. All of her friends thought that he was weird too and they had told her to leave the boy alone. She had finally made a few friends and she wasn't planning on throwing that away. So she left the boy alone. Sasuke was much more handsome and mysterious anyway.

But now she knew who the boy behind the mask truly was. A sweet, caring, determined boy. A boy who would do anything in the world to realize his dreams. He's honest and he always shows his feelings. He never frowns and he always has a smile on his face. These are the traits that she was trying to find in a boy.

She was still trying to make Sasuke open up though. She was hoping that he was a different boy then he was showing everyone right now. That he too was nice and caring. That he too was wearing a mask. Sasuke's always quiet and he never shows his emotions and it can be pretty boring to be around him sometimes. He only lives for his own purposes and he thinks that everyone else is just in the way.

She didn't know why, but it hurt to be rejected by the boy every time. It hurt so much, because the boy meant very much to her. Just by being around him she became happy, even though he saddened her with his remarks. Although she was slowly breaking, she wasn't ready to give up on him yet. She wasn't the type to give up without a fight. She wasn't ready to lose to that Ino-pig too.

'_I am not giving up on Sasuke-kun just yet. I am sure that he is nice too. He is probably just too scared to open up to me.' _

'**Whatever you say…You know that I am a part of you and you can't lie to me. I feel exactly the same as you, but I don't lie to myself and you do! I like Sasuke too. He has a really nice ass, but he has to change! I can't live with a man who has a stick up his ass!' **

Sakura sighed when she saw that her inner self was running around in circles. But she felt sad because she knew that her inner persona was right. It was a special trait for the Haruno clan and the second mind amplified one's feelings. Sasuke needed to open up. She couldn't be herself around Sasuke and she hated it to act like that. She just wanted to express her feelings and Sasuke just walked away each time she did it.

She suddenly felt a jolt of pain and was brought back to the real world. This discussion with her inner self would have to wait for now. The boy next to her was wrapping up the wound with some bandages and she still couldn't stop blushing. When he finally finished he gave her a small smile. "Are you feeling better now? I'm not a medic, but I have done my best."

She quickly pulled back her leg and checked the wrapped up wound. It looked very well done to tell the truth. She nodded with an honest smile on her face. "Yeah, thanks a lot."

She saw that the worried look in his eyes disappeared. It was replaced by a happy and caring look instead. She could get lost forever in those sapphire eyes. All of his emotions were flying through them freely and it was a beautiful sight. She shook her head and started to glance forward. She couldn't be thinking about this. _'__Bad thought, bad thoughts.__'_

"So what were you doing out so late, Sakura-chan?" He asked. She couldn't see it, but she could tell that he was smiling.

"I was just walking home from the training grounds." Sakura said, still looking forward.

This seemed to get his attention. "So you were training today again! That's great, Sakura-chan. I am really proud of you. You are really trying to become stronger. And I know that you will become one of the greatest kunoichi out there!"

This caused her to look his way again. He was snickering and he had that foxy smile on his face. Those whiskers on his cheeks only intensified that foxy look. She quickly looked away, because she knew that she was staring again. Once again the boy was praising her. She wanted Sasuke to do that so badly. But that would probably forever stay a dream. She didn't respond and just let out a sigh.

"So that's why you had that scrape on your leg. You should watch out when you're training. I don't want you to get hurt. "

She saw that his eyes became downwards again. "Don't worry. I am all better now."

He was about to say something when he suddenly saw someone coming from the shadows. Somehow the guy looked familiar, but he couldn't place him perfectly. When the person came closer his eyes widened. Black hair, black eyes and he was wearing black clothes now too. "It's been a while, teme!"

Sakura jerked her head to the side Naruto was looking. That nickname could only mean one thing. Her eyes widened and tears began to cloud her vision. "Sasuke-kun!"

The said boy heard his nickname and name and glanced towards the small bench the noise came from. A small grin crept up his face when he saw the pink and blonde hair. "Yo."

Naruto was really happy. The boy had disappeared after his battle in the prelims and he hadn't seen him since. Although he hated the boy, deep down he had been really worried at times. "So, where have you been, you bastard!" He looked Sasuke straight in the eyes while saying this.

"Don't call Sasuke-kun like that, baka!" He heard from behind him. He couldn't help but think that the scolding tone was different than usual. It was almost as if she wanted to say the same thing.

"What do you think? I've been getting much stronger." The raven haired boy said with a smile on his face.

They were lost in their little staring contest and Naruto was about to make a remark, but he was surprised when he was pushed out of the way. When he saw a pink blur making the way towards the boy he became a bit sad. He was having a good time with her and now she had already forgotten about him.

But when he saw that she hugged the raven haired boy with all of her might, he couldn't help but smile a sad smile. She had been waiting for him a long time. She had been more worried for him than anyone else in the village. He knew that she loved him, so he was happy for her.

"Sasuke-kun! I have missed you so much!" The pink haired girl was crying hard, like she hadn't seen him for years.

He shoved her away from him and nodded, before making his way to the bench. He sat down next to the blonde boy and sighed. Why couldn't that girl just leave him alone for a while? Sure, she was one of his most important people, but hugging and stuff was going too far. He had only one goal at the time and she was not a part of it.

Naruto saw the girl standing on the location Sasuke was just now. She was hugging herself and her eyes were still filled with tears. That bastard had hurt her again and he hated it. She was trying so hard to get his attention and she had missed him so much. Couldn't he show his emotions once in a while? This wasn't helping anyone.

Seeing that the bench was only big enough for two people to sit on, he quickly stood up and walked over to the pink haired girl. "Go sit down, your legs isn't all fixed yet and I don't want it to bleed again." It hurt him more than he knew when he said these words, but he knew that it was the best course of action.

Sakura glanced from Sasuke and then to Naruto. The yellow haired boy was giving her a smile and she nodded. She carefully made her way to the bench and sat down, very close to the raven haired boy. Naruto smiled when said boy gave him a look, saying 'thanks a lot for the help, baka…'

Sakura saw that he wasn't comfortable and sighed. Well, nothing had changed. He was still the same and he still rejected her. Well, at least he was back with her. She would still have enough chances to prove her love to him. Clearing her throat and wiping away her tears she turned to the boy. "So, where have you been? You've been gone for a long time, Sasuke-kun?"

She could hear the boy sigh. "Training. I thought I just told you that."

She was a little hurt from his cold reply, but kept a smile on her face nonetheless. "But where? I haven't seen you in the village for a long time."

"I don't have to answer that. My training is my problem. You have nothing to do with it. The only thing that you have to know is that I have become much stronger." He was looking to Naruto when he said this.

Sakura was hurt by his attitude and dropped her head. Naruto saw this too and he became quite angry. The bastard hadn't changed at all. She was trying so hard to be nice to him and to get his attention and he didn't even care. He was about to walk over to the two when he saw Sakura's head jerk up again with smile, although he could see in her eyes that she was very sad. "That's good, Sasuke-kun! And you already were so strong! You must be invincible now! You know, I have been training very hard too. Just tod"

She stopped talking when she saw that Sasuke quickly stood up. He walked over to Naruto with a smirk on his face. "So, have you been training too?"

Naruto looked to the pink haired girl who was sitting by herself on the bench. He could see that she was very sad. He became very angry because of this, but he needed to let Sasuke know that he was getting stronger too. "Of course! There is no way that I am going to lose to you!" He then gave the Uchiha a glare. "So, has Kakashi-sensei been training you?"

The raven haired boy simply nodded, not wanting to spill words. Naruto knew it. That lazy sensei had left him and Sakura behind to train the bastard. And here he thought that a sensei was supposed to train all of his team members the same. "When did you come back? It's not time for the finals yet. You could still do more training. Or are you already done?"

Sasuke turned around. "Kakashi said that he had to do something important in the village. We were in the middle of training and he suddenly decided to go back. But don't worry. I am strong enough as it is. Well, I am off. I am going home to get some sleep."

The boy started to walk away. And Naruto suddenly remembered what Sasuke had told him at the chuunin exams a few weeks ago. He closed his eyes and played back the memory is his mind.

'_Everyone team of three genin who had passed the genin exam were standing in line. The hokage had given every one a chance to back out of the next round of the chuunin exams, because it would get dangerous. You could even be killed by your opponent.' _

'_I was standing in front, behind me stood Sasuke and behind him was standing Sakura-chan. When our friend Kabuto suddenly raised his hand and backed out of the exam, I was getting second thoughts for a while, but I quickly washed them away. But then I saw that Sakura-chan was raising her hand slowly.' _

'_Then the bastard suddenly grabbed her hand and held it down. He said that he wasn't about to give up and that he wouldn't let her ruin his chance to fight strong people. Sakura-chan started crying and said something about a bruise. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew that he was hurting her again.' _

'_I quickly turned around and began scolding him. I said that Sakura-chan was only trying to help him, but then he suddenly turned to me with a smile. He said that he wanted to fight me too. I was so happy then. He finally wanted to fight me…he saw me as one of the strong people.'_

Naruto opened his eyes and saw that the Uchiha was almost out of sight. "Sasuke!"

The raven haired boy turned around and looked Naruto in the eyes, but said nothing. "I want to fight you too!"

Sasuke just smirked and turned around again. It wasn't long before he turned the corner on his way to the Uchiha mansion.

Naruto turned around when he heard the girl sobbing. He walked over to her and sat down on the bench. The girl hadn't even noticed that he sat down next to her and it pissed him off. That look in her eyes was destroying him. He could that bastard make something so beautiful so sad. He clenched his fist thinking about his other team mate.

He turned to her with her smile on his face. "I do see that you have been training hard! You look much stronger than before! And I am sure that anyone agrees with me!"

Sakura looked up with her teary eyes. She could see that he was smiling at her, but she didn't get why he was saying that all of a sudden. "You know how Sasuke is. He never acknowledges our strength. No matter what we do, it is never good enough. Don't let it bother you. One day the bastard will find out how strong you are. I am sure of it."

A smile came to her face. The boy next to her was trying to make her feel better. And she had just pushed him away too in order to reach Sasuke. She hadn't said a word to him. She knew that Sasuke just didn't care. He didn't even want to sit next to her…He just really hated her. Deciding that crying wouldn't help, she nodded. "You're right!"

There was a long silence after that, but it was a comfortable one. Both just stared to the sky while enjoying each other's company. The stars were already out and it was a beautiful sight. Naruto glanced to his side in order to see another beauty and saw that Sakura was trying to smile, but he could see that she had trouble doing it.

It was getting pretty late and he was getting hungry. It was around dinner time right now, so the girl next to him had to be hungry too. "So, does your mother know where you are? It's already dark, so dinner should be ready about now."

Sakura let her head fall again. Her bangs clouded most of her face and he couldn't see what was going on. He was about to ask her when she started to speak with a soft voice. "My mother left the village this morning. She will probably be gone for about a week. She said that it was for business. So I am all alone now."

Sakura could just feel his eyes on her, so she glanced to her side. She found two sad blue staring at her. "Lately, it started happening more often. Every now and then she has to go to other villages. She is an advisor of the hokage after all. And according to her the peace is slowly crumbling."

Naruto kept quiet for a while now. He knew what it meant to be home alone. It was boring and it could be quite scary at times. You want someone to be there for you when you cry and when you laugh. You try everything in your power to find someone…anyone who can keep you company.

"I hate it to be alone." She suddenly said much to his surprise. "I start to feel so empty and so… scared when I am alone. That's why I am out here now. Out here there are people walking through the streets. Here, I don't have to feel completely alone. I don't even feel save in my own room. Most of the times I can't fall asleep, because I am scared..."

"What are you afraid for?" He asked with his voice as low as possible.

Sakura glanced to her side to see a sweet and caring expression on his face. She became lost in thought for a while. Nobody had asked her this before and she hadn't told anybody about this too. Only her mother knew this. Should she tell him? The boy who had annoyed her so much in the past. But when she again saw his caring expression she decided to tell him. He had been so nice to her before, so she would just tell him. It would be good to get it out of her system.

"Well, when I was younger, I always had my parents to be there for me. Everything was all good. My father was a strong ninja and my mother took good care of me. Those were the best times in my life. But then my father was suddenly killed on a mission." This earned her a gasp from the boy next to her. "Mom couldn't take it and she broke down for a while. We both tried to be strong, but it was just so hard."

She paused for a while. "Whenever I am home alone now I can't stop worrying. Will mom be alright on her mission? Will she come back to me? Or will she leave me behind just like dad did?" Naruto could see the pain in her eyes when she stopped for a second. "I get scared of every little sound or movement in the house."

She paused again for a few seconds and she took a deep breath. "This only happens when mom's not there. When I am all alone at home. I guess that the sadness and sorrow attack me whenever I am alone. Slowly I am getting used to it, but I just hate it, you know. I just don't want to be alone anymore."

Naruto's eyes were wide now. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. _'__She is exactly the same as me. She hates it to be alone too. I can see it in her eyes. She just wants someone to be there for her, just like me. I now understand why I like this girl so much.__'_

He was broken out of his thoughts when he saw a single tear fall out of her eyes. She then turned to him with one of the fakest smiles he had ever seen in his life. "I am sorry, Naruto."

At this Naruto had to raise an eyebrow. "What for?"

"I'm sorry for being so weak. I just keep on rambling about myself. I am sure that you have better things to do then to listen to this." She turned to see him. She was ready for the disappointed look in his eyes.

But to her surprise the disappointment wasn't there. The boy leaned backwards with a serious expression on his face. "You're not weak, Sakura-chan." This surprised the girl a lot. She was about to say something, but Naruto beat her to the punch. "Nobody can beat the loneliness. It's okay to cry when you feel like that, you know. It won't do you any good to keep things for yourself like that. The best thing you can do is to talk to someone about it. Your important people will be able to help you, I am sure of it."

'_I know this, because my important people have saved me from the loneliness too. You are one of those people, Sakura-chan, and I will do anything to help you.' _

Sakura was amazed. She had never heard the boy speak like that. And that serious look in his face...Everything he said was true. She remembered how the boy always acted on missions. This wasn't the same boy. But the biggest problem was that there wasn't anyone who was willing to listen. She had tried to talk to many people about this, but they just didn't seem to mind.

"Nobody is willing to listen to me. I usually tell this sort of stuff to my mother, but that's a bit hard when she's not there, you know." She had to laugh a bit because of the irony. "I don't have many friends. Ino and I were good friends before, but now were rivals. She doesn't talk to me about these kind of things. Mostly we just talk about boys and stuff. And Sasuke…he just totally ignores me, like you just saw. So I really don't have anyone to talk to."

Sakura then glanced to her side and was surprised to see a very sad expression on his face. He was looking at his own shoes. She didn't understand at first, but turned her face to the front again when she figured it out. _'__I was rambling again. He must be getting sick and tired of me.__'_

"You've still got me…"

Her eyes widened when she heard him say those words. Turning to him, she could see his hurt expression. "I am willing to listen to you. I am willing to keep you company if you are scared. Nobody should have to feel lonely."

Confusion took over now. "Would you really do that? You mean, you really don't mind?"

His head shot up, revealing a smile as bright as the sun. "Of course! That's what friends are for, right!?"

She couldn't contain the tears anymore and they started rolling down her cheeks. She couldn't believe it. The only person that was willing to listen to her was the person she had treated like trash most of her life. She accepted him now and he could be even called a friend, but she was still a bitch towards him at times.

She always starts to ignore him whenever one of her other friends or Sasuke is nearby. She has done nothing but hit him on the head. How many times had she said something nice to him? She could count those moments on one hand. And here that same boy is saying that he would help her through the hard times of her life "I don't deserve that."

Naruto raised a brow and gave her a confused look when she said that. "What are you talking about?"

She couldn't take it anymore. Too much had happened lately and this was the final straw. Something snapped. Everything came out at once. "I don't deserve your friendship! Do you have any idea how I have treated you! I treated you like trash, Naruto, like trash! I never did something to help you…I even made fun of you when I was younger! Why do you have to be so damn nice to me?! I don't deserve it, I tell you!"

Her tears were still falling like crazy. She was surprised when she felt two arms embracing her. Her eyes shot open and she saw that Naruto was kneeling down before the bench and that he was holding her close to him. "There, there. Let it all out. You have been holding those tears back for a long time, haven't you?" He said with a soothing voice. "Don't worry; I am here for you. It doesn't matter what happened in the past. What is important is that I am here for you now."

The crying only intensified now and she buried her face in his chest. Naruto just held her and let her cry. Somehow he kind of liked the idea of holding her like that. He could get used to it. But the next time that it happened, she had to be smiling. That would be perfect.

But now he became a bit sad too. He hated to see her cry like that. He knew that the loneliness could tear you apart. He didn't know how it felt to lose someone though. She must have been even more lost then him. He started to move one of his hands through her pink hair and used the other one to keep her close.

"Since when did you become so wise?" He suddenly heard her say. He just grinned. It wasn't that he was wise. He had been through it himself. He had nobody to talk too either for the greater part of his life. He never cried and kept everything bottled up inside. But when he met Iruka, things started to change. The man took him to the ramen stand and talked to him. At those moments he was really happy.

After a few minutes the sobbing finally stopped. He let her go and watched the girl before him. She was looking down the ground with red eyes and tears everywhere, but she was still the cutest girl he had ever seen. There was something in his mind that told him that Sakura was the only one for him. He wanted to end up with her and nobody else.

But he knew that she loved Sasuke and he was okay with that now. He found something out. As long as it would make her happy, nothing else mattered. He would protect her and keep her safe from harm. He would be her friend if she would let him and he would be there if she needed him. To be a friend would be good enough.

He lifted her chin and looked her in the eyes. Tears threatened to fall again and he knew that he had to act quickly. He cupped her cheek and wiped away the remaining tears with his thumbs. "Now I can see those beautiful eyes again!" He said with a smile.

'_You know, I always hoped that Sasuke-kun would be the one to hold me like that…to be the one to comfort me when I was feeling down, but somehow this felt right. I can see that he really cares for me.'_ A smile came to her face. "Naruto, thank you."

"You are welcome, Sakura-chan!" He said with a smile. "So what are you planning to do now?"

She looked at him and couldn't help but smile. "Well, at first I was planning to go home to make something to eat. But now I've got a better idea." She stood up and dusted herself off. "I am going to eat outside today."

The Kyuubi container stood up too and put his hands on the back of his head. "Great plan, Sakura-chan! Well, if there is anything you need, remember that I am always there for you. If you want me to leave right now, I understand. You are having a tough time right now."

"Well, actually…" Naruto glanced over his shoulder and was confused to find her blushing. "I wanted to ask if you wanted to come with me to the ramen bar. Maybe we can…talk more there."

Naruto's eyes widened when he realised what the girl was saying. He had asked her the same question so many times, but she dejected him each time, much to his dismay. But now the roles were reversed. She asked him. He quickly did the first thing that came to his mind. He pinched himself. _'__I am still here. This isn__'__t a dream!__'_

When he got a confused look from Sakura, he started to grin. "Oh…you don't want to…I understand. I can go by myself too. You must have better things to do anyway."

Before she could start to walk away, she felt something on her hand. She turned around and saw that he was holding her. "Actually, I would like that very much, Sakura-chan! I want to talk with you some more too."

She let out a big smile. "Then what are we waiting for! Let's go!" She started to pull him towards the ramen stand. She hadn't been so happy in a long time and she had Naruto to thank for it. To think that this was the same boy she detested in the past. A feeling of shame crossed her hart, but she quickly thought about the words that the boy said to her.

'_It doesn't matter what happened in the past. What is important is that I am here for you now.'_

Yeah, the boy had helped her tremendously by just being there and comforting her. She looked to the stars in the sky. _'__From now on I will be there for you too, Naruto__…__my friend.__'_

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**AN: **I decided to stop the story here. I wanted to write much more in the chapter, but I want my chapters to be around the 4000-5000 words. This one is about 6000 words, so I went too far again…

I had planned 3 or 4 scenes in this chapter, but I only wrote this 1…it became a little too long. But I do hope that you enjoyed the NaruSaku moment. They have finally become true friends now. No romantic feelings from Sakura to Naruto yet, although as you can see, she is beginning to doubt her love for Sasuke. I am sorry that I had to make Sakura go through all of that, but in my story she has a sad past too. In the manga we never learn about her parents, so something like this could have really happened.

Next chapter things will start off again. I hope to update soon, but I think that the next one will be ready in about 5 days. I hope that you keep reading my story and don't hesitate to leave a review.

The pairings will be decided by you guys, so keep on voting :D

Until next time!


	6. Memories

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. ****If I would, then NaruSaku would have happened a long time ago**

Thanks for the nice reviews, guys. Nobody has guessed who the coated persons are, but it doesn't matter yet. You won't see them play an important role anytime soon. Please keep reviewing. I like to read them and I will try to answer questions if you have them. I am open for critique too. And if you want to have a idea to go with the story, don't hesitate to tell me:D

**Poll****  
****Ino:**  
Chouji: 6  
Kiba: 1  
Shikamaru: 6

**Tenten:**  
Lee: 4  
Neji: 9

**Hinata:**  
Kiba: 9  
Shino: 2  
Sasuke: 1

**Temari:**  
Shikamaru: 7  
Oc: 1

"Hello": regular talking  
_'Hello'_: thinking  
'_**Hello'**_: Inner Sakura and Kyuubi talking

Don't forget to R&R ;)

**Enjoy**

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Memories**

"Where…where am I?"

She opened her right eye and closed it again when she saw the light. It seems that she had her eyes closed for a long time. She had seen a couple of movies where people had this problem too after waking up in a light room after being asleep for a long time.

"You're in the hospital."

So she was in the hospital. That would indeed explain the strange light she saw after opening her eye. She tried to open her left eye, but it didn't work. There was something on it. Bringing her hand to the eye, she could feel that it was bandaged. And when she tried to move her left hand, it hurt like hell too.

"Why am I here?"

She could hear a deep sigh. "Well, you were hurt pretty bad, so they brought you to the hospital."

She was hurt pretty bad? Just what had happened to her and why did her head hurt so much. She used her hands to push herself up to a sitting position. Feeling okay now, she tried to open her eye again. The light was there to greet her again, but somehow it wasn't as bad as the first time now.

The light faded a bit after a few seconds and she could see that she was in a white room. She turned to the beeping sound that seemed to never stop and saw that it came from a machine that was connected to her arm by some wires. The arm was bandaged just like her eye, but she could see that it wasn't broken or something. Just how did she end up like that? And who was that other person in the room? She turned her face to the right and started to smile when she saw who it was.

"Sasuke-kun!"

The raven haired boy turned to her and nodded. Somebody, who didn't know the boy as well as she did, would say that he was an insensitive prick who had ignored her. But she knew better. Sasuke nodding meant that he was actually pretty happy at the moment. Although she wanted him to actually express his feelings, she could tell that he actually cared for her.

The boy turned his face to the front again and lied back down on his bed. He folded his hands behind his head and started to stare to the while ceiling. "So, are you okay now, Sakura?"

Surprised with the boy, she gave him a confused look. "Yeah, I am alright, I guess. Well, at least I feel okay, but seeing that I am in the hospital, something has to be wrong, right?" She said it while looking at her injured arm.

She was broken out of her thoughts when she heard the boy speak again. "You got hurt pretty bad some time ago and you just woke up for the first time."

This surprised her a lot. "How long have I been out, Sasuke-kun?"

There was a pretty long silence after that. Sakura could feel the pressure drop a few degrees while she glanced over to the window. It seemed to be a sunny day today and she couldn't find a cloud in the sky. So it couldn't be the weather what made the temperature drop. She wasn't feeling very comfortable at the moment. It felt like she was lost in the dark. She didn't know what had happened and she hated it.

"More than three months."

Confusion took over when she heard those words. She quickly turned to the raven haired boy with a confused expression on her face. "What did you say?"

The Uchiha had a stoic expression on his face and he just kept on staring to the ceiling as if his life depended on it. "You've been out for more than three months, Sakura."

Sakura's eyes widened now. She couldn't believe it. "Three months!?"

She turned her face towards the sheets of her bed now. She couldn't understand it. Just how could she have been out more than three months? It just didn't make any sense. She tried to remember what had happened, but each time she tried to do that her head started to hurt like crazy. She brought one of her hands to her head, trying to lift the pain a little, but was surprised to find it bandaged as well. So she was more hurt than she had thought at first.

"They said that you had suffered a lot of damage to your head and that you were in a coma." This caught her attention. So she had been in a coma. "And you just woke up for the first time now. They said that the chance was there that you would never wake up anymore. So consider yourself lucky."

She now turned to the boy and found him smirking towards her. This was something she had never seen before. Was she dreaming or something? That would explain a lot of things, because she still had no idea of what was going on. But deciding that this dream could turn out as one of the greatest dreams ever, she smiled back at the boy.

"So, how did I end up here, Sasuke-kun?" Her eyes never left the boy and she became sad when the smirk on his face was replaced by a frown again. He started to stare to the ceiling again and even closed his eyes.

She was about to say something about it, when she heard the boy speak. "You will have to figure that out for yourself."

This confused her and even made her a bit angry. "Why don't you just tell me, Sasuke-kun? I don't know what happened and that's why I am asking you!" It wasn't her intention to become so angry, but she just hated to not know what was going on.

She was surprised when the boy opened his eyes and jumped out of the bed next to her. He landed on the white tiles on the ground and started to make his way to the exit of the room without even glancing to her. His hand touched the doorknob and she couldn't take it anymore. She tried to get out of bed to stop him and to make him tell her what was going on, but she was stopped. Glancing to her side she could see the treads that connected her to the machines next to her bed. Cursing, she turned to the boy again. "Sasuke-kun, please don't leave me here alone!"

The boy opened the door and took a few steps. Finally turning around, he could see the tears starting to form in her eyes. It wasn't easy to wake up without knowing anything, but according to the big breasted lady, the girl had to remember everything herself. That would stimulate her recovery.

Although he wasn't the emotional kind of guy, he hated to see one of his friends tear up like that. He lowered his head and turned to the hall. "You have to find out for yourself. Just think hard and you will find what you seek. They said that it would come back faster when you are asleep."

Sakura could feel the tears starting to fall now. She didn't want to find out by herself. She just wanted someone to be there for her now. "Please don't leave, Sasuke-kun!"

"I'm going home. The doctors gave me a clear to go already, so I am going to start training again." With those last words the raven haired boy closed the door and made his way down the hall.

Sakura couldn't stop the tears from falling now. He had just left her alone to go training? What kind of bullshit was that? She thought that the boy actually cared for her after seeing his smile just now, but that was just a dream after all. She let her head drop and lied down on the bed again.

Turning her face towards the side of the window she became surprised when she saw a chair with something on it. Had someone been sitting there? She took a good look and saw that it was a forehead protector that was lying on the chair. Her eyes widened when she saw spatters of blood on it, but she shook her head and continued to stare to the ceiling again.

The headache was getting less by the minute and the tears were stopping to fall as well. So she had to find out everything for herself, didn't she? It's not like she had anything better to do anyway. Closing her eyes she started to try to find the memories lost in the mazes in her huge forehead. What surprised her a lot was that her other self wasn't talking to her for once. That was really strange, considering that it had bugged her ever since she was a little girl.

Okay, what was the last thing she could remember? She could still remember going to the wave country, meeting with Inari and Tazuna, defeating Zabuza and Haku, Sasuke almost dying. She shivered a bit when she remembered that last part. She could still recall how much she cried that moment. Thank god the boy had survived.

She could still remember throwing Naruto of the bridge when he asked her on a date when they were walking back to the village. A smirk now appeared on her face. Kakashi had to save the boy with some kind of jutsu and Naruto had been quiet the entire trip back.

After that the chuunin exams began. First there was that stupid written exam and after that they had gone to the forest of death. A shiver came down her back when she remembered the events with Orochimaru. Then there was the curse seal, everyone saving her, going to the tower in the middle of the forest with her team and Kabuto.

She could still recall tying with Ino in the prelims. A frown appeared on her face when she thought back to that battle. She should have won. She still wasn't the girl that she wanted to be. The blonde girl had always been much stronger than her and she was prettier too. And on top of that Ino had some attributes to show; while she had almost nothing…except for a huge forehead…She was thankful for the pink hair. Without it, she would probably be mistaken for a boy many times. She let out a huge sigh and closed her eyes again.

After that she started her own training. It was really hard, but she persevered and became a lot stronger. She then met with Naruto and they had a small talk about training and other things. After that her mother left the village for a mission. Her eyes suddenly shot open. What had happened to her mother? Had she already returned? And why wasn't she here? She shook her head and calmed down. Her mother was probably fine and she would see the woman soon enough.

Closing the heavy eyelids again, she thought back of the long talk with Naruto on the bench. She blushed when she remembered how he touched her leg. She couldn't explain why, but she heated up thinking about that moment every time.

But that was the day that they really had become friends and she wouldn't have it any other way. He had told her that he would be there for her whenever she needed him and it had made her so happy. They went to the ramen shop after that and she was still amazed that he could eat more than 10 bowls of ramen. He then brought her home and she could still remember that she fell asleep with a smile on her face that night.

Somehow she couldn't remember what had happened after that. Her eyelids became awfully heavy now and she couldn't keep them open anymore. She could always think about this another time. Looking out of the window on more time, she could see that the clouds were starting to gather above the village. Konoha would be in for some rain soon. Before she knew it the darkness had overtaken her.  
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She was awoken by a loud noise and quickly sat up in her bed. When she heard some noises again, she made her way to the window and saw that some buildings of the village were on fire. She then dressed herself and went outside to see what was going on and found that sound and sand ninja were fighting with those of Konoha.

"Sakura-chan!"

She turned around and saw that Naruto was running towards her with a strange look on his face. He seemed to be pretty exhausted too. "Are you alright, Sakura-chan?!"

"Yeah, I'm alright. What the hell is going on here?!" She looked around and saw that everyone was fighting. There was a lot of blood on the ground and there were craters everywhere.

"The village is being attacked by the sound and sand villages!" She then turned to him and saw that he wasn't lying. He was all dirty too and it seemed that he had been fighting too.

"What happened to you, Naruto?" She was getting worried about her friend.

She saw that he turned to her with a smile on his face. "Don't worry, it is nothing. Some sound ninja attacked me, but Kakashi-sensei helped me to defeat them…Watch out!!"

She was surprised when the boy suddenly pushed her out of the way. She was about to scold him for doing that, but when she saw that a kunai was now embedded in his back, her eyes became wide. "Naruto!"

She ran over to him and saw him fall to his knees. She caught him and saw that he was in a lot of pain. "Naruto, are you alright!" When the boy didn't answer right away, she did the only thing that came to her mind. She pulled the kunai out as fast as possible. She was surprised when the wound was starting to heal already, but she shook her head and looked the boy in her eyes. "Naruto!"

The boy opened his eyes and gave her a smile. "You're okay, Sakura-chan."

Tears came to her eyes and she hit the boy on his head. "Why did you have to do that, you baka! You could have been killed!"

"I vowed to be there for you and I don't go back on my word, Sakura-chan!" She saw that he was trying to smile and somehow all of her worried vanished when she saw the smile. She shook her head and helped the boy up again. When she saw that he could stand again she let him go.

She was surprised when she saw the boy walk away. "Come on, Sakura-chan! We have to go now!"

"What are you saying? Where do we have to go?" At the same time she had to dodge another kunai thrown her way. This really wasn't a good day.

She saw the boy turn around and was surprised to find a serious expression on his face. "Kakashi-sensei has given us a mission. Apparently he saw Sasuke follow the three sand ninjas from the chuunin exams and he asked me to get you and then follow him. So we need to hurry!"

When she heard this, she became awfully worried about Sasuke. Those three sand ninjas were very scary and strong. She didn't know how strong Sasuke had become because of his training, but she knew that he wouldn't be able to stand against all three of those ninjas. She stood up and ran after Naruto. "Okay, let's hurry; we need to help Sasuke-kun!"

She saw that he nodded and he turned around and started to run again. She followed after him, but she had trouble keeping up. The boy was much faster than her somehow and he was going faster and faster. "Wait up, Naruto! Don't go so fast!"

They went through the gates of the village and jumped into the trees. This would help them to reach their target as soon as possible, because on the ground they would have the chance to encounter enemy shinobi. She saw that the boy was slowing down a bit to get in step with her. "What's wrong, Sakura-chan?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't go that fast. I'm still pretty beat from training." She knew that she was a bother again and she dropped her head. It was always like this. Her friends were always held back by her and she hated it. She was surprised when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She glanced to her side and saw that the blonde haired boy was staring at her with a smile on his face. "Don't worry, Sakura-chan. I know that you have been training a lot lately and that can be pretty tiring. But we have to go faster. I don't know why, but I have a bad feeling about Sasuke and I want to get there as fast as possible!"

She could see the determination in his eyes and couldn't help but stare at them. Those eyes were just made to get lost in. She quickly shook her head when she noticed that she was dreaming again. "So, you are going to move on ahead without me?"

She was shocked when he suddenly grabbed her hand. "No way! We are going to save him together!" She started blushing when she saw that he grabbed her hand and was even more surprised when he increased his speed again. She was pulled with him as he jumped from tree to tree with a speed she could only hope to achieve someday.

Suddenly there was a loud scream and she knew who that voice belonged to. "Sasuke-kun!"

"Yeah, I know, we need to hurry!" Again he increased his speed and she had trouble holding on to his hand. The winds were rushing through her hair and she was amazed that the boy holding her could move so fast. Since when was he able to do this?

"Naruto, slow down a bit, please, I can't hold on!" The boy turned to face her and she was shocked when she saw that his eye's weren't blue anymore…they were red! What was going on here? The colour of your eyes wasn't supposed to change, was it?

"Just hold on! We're almost there, Sakura-chan!" She did as he said and used all of her power to hold on to him. There would be enough other times to ask him about those red eyes and saving Sasuke-kun was more important now.

After a few minutes she could finally see two people in the distance. There were fighting with each other and one of them seemed to be at the losing side. "Naruto, there they are!"

The boy must have seen it too, because he suddenly stopped running and landed on one of the tree branches here. He let go of her hand and turned to her. She could see that his eyes had returned to normal now and she let out a sigh of relief. Maybe she had just imagined it. She was pretty tired after all. "Sakura-chan, please wait here. I am going to help the bastard right now."

This infuriated her a lot. First the boy dragged her all the way here and then he says that she needs to stay put. "No way, Naruto! I need to show that I can fight too. I need to help, Sasuke-kun!"

"No!" She was taken back by the force of his voice. "Don't you see who he is fighting? Just take a good look over there!"

Sakura didn't know what he was talking about and look over to the fighting duo. Her eyes went to Sasuke first. He seemed to be having trouble keeping up and he was bleeding a lot. The black clothes he was wearing were in bad shape and she could see that he had been hit by some sharp objects.

And to her shock he had black markings all over his body too. She knew that this could only mean one thing. That curse seal had taken him over again. But how could that be? Kakashi had told her that the seal wouldn't be a problem anymore, right? Then how could this be happening? And how could he be losing with the seal activated. She could still remember the power he showed her in the forest of death when he had the curse seal activated. It looked like as if he was invincible.

She then turned her attention to the other fighter. But to her shock, the sand ninja didn't look human anymore. The left side of his body was covered in sand and resembled some kind of monster. The look in his eyes was pretty scary too. It was the same look he had when he tried to kill Lee in the prelims. She took a step backwards and fell down on her butt. "What the hell is that!?"

"I don't know, but it is making him a lot stronger. And you know how strong that creep already was!" Sakura could see that he was beginning to get scared himself too. This was expectable, because it was a horrifying sight to look at. "Just don't get involved, Sakura-chan!"

He was about to jump away, when she grabbed his hand. "Don't leave me here, Naruto! Sasuke-kun is losing to that guy. You can't beat that guy on your own! What are you thinking! We need to work together to beat this thing!" She was surprised when he slapped her hand away.

He gave her an angry look, but she could see that he was having trouble doing it. "Sakura-chan, I am not kidding! I know that you want to help Sasuke, but the best way to do that is to stay here. That guy…he lives to kill! He told me himself."

Sakura had to raise an eyebrow when he said this. "When did you meet up with that guy?"

He then glanced over to the battle. "Just a few days ago. He came to me when I was training. I didn't see him coming, because I needed all of my concentration for the training. He was about to attack me, before Ero-sennin kicked him away. He then gave me a scary look and told me that he was born a monster and that he lives to kill other people. He then walked away and told me that he would kill me the next time we would meet."

Sakura's eye's widened now. She couldn't say anything, because the boy continued again. "I would have been dead without Ero-sennin. Don't you see…that guy is dangerous! He won't hesitate to kill you and there is no way that I am exposing you to such danger!"

He turned around and saw that he lowered his head. "I just don't want you to get hurt, Sakura-chan. Please just listen to me. I will get Sasuke and then you can run away with him. I will hold that guy off, so that you guys can run. Go back to Kakashi-sensei and stay there."

Sakura couldn't believe it. What was that boy in front of her saying? She took a few steps towards the boy and hit him on the head. This caused the boy to look towards her and she could see the disbelieving look in his eyes. She knew that she was crying, but she didn't care.

Giving the boy a glare, she took grabbed him by his collar. "So you are just planning on dying here! There is no way that I am going to let you do that, Naruto! I am your friend and I will do everything to help you! So stop slacking off and let's go save Sasuke-kun now!"

She saw the look in his eyes and couldn't help but to feel proud. This was the girl she wanted to be...a strong, determined girl who would do anything for her important people. She saw that the boy shook his head and he brought his hand to the newly added bump on his head. "Ouch, you sure hit hard, Sakura-chan."

"And I am going to keep hitting you until you let me go with you, so what will it be." She said with a devilish smile on her face. She lifted her fist and started to walk towards the blonde boy who was trying to get away. "Well?"

She saw the boy let out a breath. "Fine! You can go with me." Sakura started to smile and continued to walk towards the boy. "But…" Stopping right in front of him she looked him in the eyes. They seemed full of worry and care and Sakura couldn't help but stare at them. "Promise me that you will just protect Sasuke and that you won't fight when you don't have to. I will fight him and I will win. So promise me to try and stay out of the battle."

Sakura kept looking the boy in the eyes and could tell that he was really worried about her. But there was something else. Something she hadn't seen very often in his eyes…insecurity. That couldn't be good. He was scared of the sand nin too and he knew that he couldn't win, but still he insisted that she would stay out of the battle. "I will promise that I will stay out of the battle until I see that you need help, okay?"

She saw that the boy was lost in thought for a while, but finally he nodded. "Okay, but your help won't be necessary, because I will win!"

Sakura gave the boy a smile and nodded. They both turned to the battle and were surprised when they saw Sasuke stand up with a smile on his face. His sharingan was activated and the curse seal was still spread over his body. She wondered if the boy next to her knew what that curse seal was, because he had been asleep the first time Sasuke had used it. She was about to jump into action when she saw an arm block her path. She turned to see the boy next to her and was surprised to see a smile on his face. "What are you smiling about, Naruto and why aren't we going to help Sasuke-kun.?"

The boy didn't answer her and she was about to hit him on the head for ignoring her when the boy spoke. "So that's what he's been teaching you, isn't it, Sasuke-teme."

Sakura didn't understand what he was saying, but when she heard some chirping sounds, she quickly turned to the battle again. When she saw what was making that sound her eyes widened. Chakra was gathering in Sasuke's hand and it was making the sounds of chirping birds. When he finally raised his hand, she could see that it had taken the form of some kind of ball and lightning was emitting from the ball.

Wait…she had seen this jutsu before. But where? She thought for a while and suddenly it hit her. Kakashi-sensei had used this move on Zabuza and he had used it a few times after that too. According to the man with the mask it was the only move that he invented himself, so does this mean that he taught it to Sasuke? She was broken out of her thoughts when she saw the raven haired boy jump towards the sand ninja with the energy in his hand.

The sand ninja saw this and jumped towards Sasuke with his sand-covered arm. They collided and there was a pretty big explosion. There was a lot of smoke coming her way and she was surprised when Naruto jumped in front of her and blocked the incoming debris with his back. She saw that he was smiling at her, but when she saw all the parts of wood hit his back, he winced in pain too.

When the smoke cleared, she saw the boy in front of her turn around and she was finally able to see the damage that had been done. His back was all bloody and the jacket was torn. "Naruto, you're hurt!"

She saw that the boy was looking around and he didn't seem to be in any pain. "Don't worry, Sakura-chan, it's just a scratch. Where's Sasuke?!"

This snapped her out of her daze and she quickly looked around to find the boy she loved. He couldn't be killed by that sand bastard right…it just couldn't be true. About to start screaming his name, she jumped up a branch, so that she was able to see more. That's when she saw the raven haired boy on a tree branch. He was lying on his stomach and she couldn't see him moving. "Sasuke-kun!"

Without thinking she jumped from the tree branch she was standing on and headed towards Sasuke's location with all the speed she was able to muster. She could hear that Naruto was screaming her name, but she didn't care. She had to know whether Sasuke was alright or not. She couldn't stand the thought of losing her important people.

While jumping from branch to branch she looked around for their enemy. Where was that red haired freak? Maybe he was defeated by Sasuke's attack? That attack which he learned from Kakashi was one of the strongest moves she had ever seen after all. Yeah, the sand ninja was probably defeated.

'**Yeah, I'm sure Sasuke-kun won the battle against that freak. Nobody is able to beat him. Shannaro!' **When Sakura saw that her inner self was making the sign for victory, she just had to sweat drop. She shook her head and told her inner self to be quiet for a while. She didn't have the time to be distracted right now.

When she was almost there, the air suddenly became quite heavy. And it was very quiet all of a sudden…too quiet. She didn't know what it was, but just shook it off. Reaching Sasuke was the most important thing right now.

She landed on the branch and kneeled down to see if the boy was alright. The first thing she saw was that he was breathing. She let out a sigh and continued to look at the boy. He had some wounds that looked pretty bad and she could see that he almost didn't have any chakra left.

And then there were those back marks. They were still there. She took a look in his face and could see the evil expression. It was the same look he gave her as he did in the forest of death and it scared the hell out of her. It was the expression of pure hatred and killer intent. The boy suddenly closed his eyes in pain and he started to scream. The bruise on his neck was glowing and she could see that he was trying to stand up.

"Wait, Sasuke-kun, don't stand up. You're in no condition to move." She had trouble keeping the boy down, but somehow she did it. The little bit of purple chakra he was emitting hurt her a little, but she stayed put. The glowing of the seal stopped and she could see that the black marks were starting to disappear.

When all of the black marks had disappeared the boy fell down again and she could see that he had trouble breathing. His eyes were normal again and she was glad that the evil expression had disappeared, although his usual expression wasn't all too friendly too. But what scared her was that the sharingan had disappeared too. His chakra had to be running very low then. "Sasuke-kun, just stay here for now. We're going to get you back to the village. Don't worry."

"He's…"

When she heard the Uchiha mumble those words, she closed in on the boy and asked him what was wrong. The boy must have really given everything if he had trouble to speak. "He's not dead."

Sakura's eyes widened. "What do you mean!? That freak has to be dead. There is no way that he survived your attack." She became worried when the boy tried to get up again. She didn't try to stop him this time, because they needed to get him to the village anyway. The boy wouldn't let her support him, probably because of his male pride.

"I'll show you what he meant!"

Sakura quickly turned around when she heard those words. What she saw didn't make her happy. The red haired ninja of the sand village was heading towards her with his body completely covered in sand. He now looked like a monster. His eyes were yellow with black dots in it and he had claws made of sand. She knew that she couldn't get away in time. He was way too fast. So she did the only thing she could do. Pulling out a kunai she got in combat stance to fend off the monster.

"Now die!"

She was about to be killed when she suddenly saw a great orange blur. The ninja of the sand was pushed to the side by three Naruto's and he fell down the tree. The Naruto's disappeared and the real one landed next to her. "Are you alright, Sakura-chan?!"

She could see the worry in his eyes and gave him a small smile. "Thanks to you."

She quickly walked over to Sasuke and saw that he was sitting against the trunk of the tree now. When she heard an explosion behind her, she turned around and saw that the monster was back already. He was heading towards Naruto and the boy didn't even move. There was a bit of smoke when he hit the boy, but when the smoke cleared she could see a log. "Kawarimi no jutsu!"

She saw that the sand ninja was confused, but when he looked her way the monster began to smile. "Well, then I will kill you first!" He started to run towards her with an eerie look in his eyes.

He was about to attack when she heard a whirling sound. She looked up and saw that Naruto was heading towards the sand monster with a lot of energy in his hand. What was that energy in his hand? She had never seen him do that before. The shape changed every second though and she could see that a lot of energy was whirling away from the attack. The red haired freak saw it too late and was hit by the energy on the head. "Rasengan!"

There was an explosion and she couldn't see what was going on. She could hear tree branches snapping and that could only mean one thing. She jumped down a few branches and saw that the two were falling. The sand shinobi's sand armour had a big hole in it and she was able to see a bit of his face. And to her surprise she could see blood coming out the hole. The red haired boy was screaming out in pain, but to her surprise the sand was filling the hole already.

Naruto was still falling too and she could see that he wasn't able to grab onto a branch. She quickly jumped down and caught the boy before he hit the ground. She then gathered chakra in her feet and used it to stick to the trunk of the tree. She then jumped to a branch again and set the boy down. There were gashes in his face and she could see that he was panting. It seemed like that attack hurt him even more than it hurt the enemy. "Naruto, are you alright!?"

The boy slowly stood up and gave her a nod. "Yeah, I'm alright, thanks, Sakura-chan." He then started to look around for the sand ninja, but Sakura could see that he was having trouble standing up. His knees were shaking and his breathing was shallow. The boy was exhausted and hurt and he couldn't take much more of this.

A sound was heard and suddenly she saw the sand shinobi next to her. Her eyes widened and she quickly threw a kunai. It hit him, but it didn't hurt him because of the sand. She cursed and grabbed another kunai for her defence. She knew that it wasn't much, but she needed to do something. She glanced behind her and saw that Naruto had done the same.

The monster jumped back a few meters and suddenly moved his arm forward. "Sand shuriken!"

Her eyes widened when she saw a lot of objects made of sand coming her way. She got ready to be hit, but was surprised when Naruto jumped in front of her. "Naruto!" The sandy objects hit the boy and he was sent flying backwards. He was pushed against Sakura because of the attack and they were both flying now. They came to a halt when Sakura hit the trunk of the tree and both winced in pain.

She fell down on her behind and she felt a lot of pain again. One of her legs was hanging over the left side of the branch and the other one was hanging over the right side. She opened her eyes to find Naruto in front of her between her legs with his back pressed against her body. She blushed a little, because this was how she had imagined sitting with her boyfriend one day. But when she saw his head fall down she became worried.

She quickly wrapped her arms around the boy when she saw that he was falling forward. She knew that she was pressing him to her breasts even more now, but she didn't care. He was hurt and she needed to help him. She could hit him for being a pervert later. Her hands were now located on his stomach, but she was shocked when she felt something wet. She pulled back one of her hands and saw that there was blood on it. "Naruto, are you alright! You're bleeding!"

She quickly stood up, but was careful to keep the boy from falling. She looked around, but couldn't see the sand demon anywhere. She picked the boy up and jumped down to the ground. While she was doing this, she was finally able to see the damage on his stomach. It was bleeding very badly and his clothes were torn completely. When she reached the ground, she lied him down. "Naruto, hey, are you alright!?"

"Yeah, don't worry about me. Go help Sasuke." He said with a very low voice. She could see that he was injured very much.

She was about to hit him on the head for even making such a comment when she felt a strong chakra signal coming her way. Her eyes widened when she recognised it. "Damn it, Naruto's not ready to move yet. We need to get out of here!" She was about to pick the boy up again when she felt a strong strike to her jaw. She was sent flying and hit the ground hard.

She could hear Naruto yell her name and was about to stand up when she heard him scream again. She quickly opened her eyes and saw that he was standing with one of his feet on top of the boy and he was pushing the foot into the ground. Naruto was crying out in pain and she could see the blood flowing from his mouth. She wanted to help him so much. Hadn't that same boy protected her all the time? If she wouldn't help him now, it would be too late.

She looked to the boy in one of the trees. She could see that the raven haired boy was trying to help, but his body just wouldn't move. And the other one was being killed right now. She couldn't take it anymore and something snapped. This was the time to protect those two for once.

She stood up and grabbed a few kunai. "Hey, you bastard! Leave my friends alone!" This seemed to catch the attention of the monster and he looked her way. He jumped her way and she quickly made some seals. He extended the claw made of sand and hit her, only to reveal a big log.

"What the hell. So my prey is trying to fool around! This is so good. There more pleasure I will have when I kill you guys!"

She could hear the monster yell, but it didn't scare her anymore. She had to overcome her fear in order to protect her friends. She picked up the blonde and jumped up the trees. She placed him next to Sasuke. "Stay here, guys; I will protect you guys now!" She jumped down before either one of them could say a word.

She landed on the ground again and saw the monster looking at her. She could see that a wicked smile came to his face and she could feel the pressure now. She took the four kunai that she had been preparing in her hands and waited for the monster to come. She knew that this was the only chance she was going to get. He lunged towards her with awesome speed and she threw the kunai right at him. "Take this!"

Gaara didn't seem to mind and he just guarded the attacks with his sand-reinforced arm. "Don't think that you can defeat me with such petty attacks, woman!" That's when the explosion notes on the four kunai started to burn. "What the hell!"

Sakura gave him a determined look and jumped back. "This is for my friends!"

There was a huge explosion and although she was pretty far from the blast, she was still blown away. She hit her head on a rock and it started to bleed. She could hear her name being called by her blonde haired friend, but she didn't have the strength to look up anymore. Everything was spinning around her and she just wanted to go to sleep.

That's when the smoke cleared. The sand ninja stood in the middle of it and she could see that he was hurt pretty bad. The armour was damaged very much, but he was still standing. She couldn't believe it. Was that thing invincible or something? The armour was already returning and she could see the smile on his face. She tried to get up, but it was very hard, because everything was spinning.

The armour was back and he was already making his way towards her. "That was a nice try, woman! You are worth killing!"

He extended his arm again, but she was able to jump up just in time. But while she was in the air he appeared right before her with a smirk on his face. Her eyes widened, because that was the only thing she could do. Her head was spinning so much. She saw that he was extending his arm again, but she just didn't have the strength to evade it anymore. It hit her and she was pushed against a big tree. She screamed out in pain.

She saw that he left the sand around her body, so that she stayed pinned against the trunk. He then jumped back and landed on a tree branch. Her eyelids were becoming heavy and everything was slowly going black. She could see that he threw some sand shuriken towards her and she let a tear fall out of her eye. "So this is it. I am sorry to have failed you, Sasuke-kun and I am sorry that I have failed you, Naruto. I couldn't protect you…" The last thing she saw was an orange blur that appeared in front of her.

"Naruto! Sasuke-kun!" She shot up and opened her eyes and looked around. She was in a white room and she could hear the sound of some machine. She turned around and saw that she was in the hospital room again. She steadies her breathing and fell back down on the bed. "Was all of that a dream?"

She shook her head and remembered the words that Sasuke had told her before he left her…alone.

"_You have to find out for yourself. Just think hard and you will find what you seek. They said that it would come back faster when you are asleep."_

"What's wrong Sakura-san? Are you alright?" A nurse came in the room and walked over to her bed. "Sasuke-kun told me that you had awoken, but he told me to leave you alone for a while, so I listened, but when I just heard you scream I just had to check on you."

"I…I'm alright, thank you." She figured that this was the best chance to find out what was going on. "I just had a dream and it looked like it was all real. Is there any chance that this could happen?"

The nurse sat down on the bed next to her and nodded. She had a sweet smile on her face and Sakura couldn't help but admire the young woman. "Whenever someone just comes out of a coma, that person can be a little lost. The progress of remembering is pretty slow, but this process also goes on when you are asleep. And most of the times this happens in the way of a dream. So what you saw is probably what really happened."

Sakura sighed and bowed her head. "Thank you a lot." The woman smiled at her and left the room.

Sighing she lied down again and started to look to the white ceiling. So now she knew why she had to go to the hospital. That sand bastard had injured her. Her eyes widened when she realised the consequences of this. What about the war, what about that sand monster! She knew that Sasuke was alright, he had been there when she woke up, but what about Naruto. Something suddenly hit her. She glanced to her side with wide eyes and still saw the forehead protector lying on the chair.

She quickly grabbed it and examined it thoroughly. The forehead protector was pretty beaten up and the cloth was blue. That didn't say much, because almost anyone had a forehead protector with a blue cloth. She then brought the object to her nose and sniffed it. "It can't be!"

Tears began to form in her eyes, when she saw the blood on the headband. It smelled like the boy she had grown to care about. She then remembered the last thing she saw in her dream. An orange blur…that could only mean one thing. Naruto must have jumped in front of her again to block the attack.

"Oh no! Don't tell me!" She knew that Naruto would never go anywhere without his forehead protector. Holding the headband close to her she began to cry.

"Naruto!!"

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**AN:** Argh, the chapter is too long again. Why can't I write any short chapters:D Well, I hope that you guys enjoyed the chapter. It may get a little confusing at a time, but Sakura falls asleep and then has a dream and in that dreams she remembers what happened after the previous chapter.  
I changed the Gaara battle a bit and I hope you like it. I gave Sakura a bigger role in this one. Naruto's rasengan was really weak here and it was far from completed. And I put in some NaruSaku of course XD

Please tell me what you think of the chapter. I tried my best to make it good and I would like to know if it worked. Reviews motivate me to write the next chapter quicker. You can flame me too, but please motivate your flaming, so that I know what to change. And keep voting for your favourite couples.

Until next time.


	7. Revenge

"Hello": regular talking  
_'Hello'_: thinking  
'_**Hello'**_: Inner Sakura and Kyuubi talking

Don't forget to R&R ;)

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**Revenge**

Sighing, Sasuke walked through the village with a sad look on his face. He could still remember the face of the pink haired girl when he left her without saying anything. It looked like she was really scared to be left alone. The girl had woken up in the hospital of all places and she had no idea what had happened and how she had ended up here. It had to be hard to deal with.

He quickly shook his head. He wasn't the type to dwell on these things. He was an avenger and he couldn't let his emotions get to him. True, Sakura and Naruto meant a lot to him, but he couldn't stray from his goal. It was his only purpose in life.

He reached the market place in town and looked around. The destruction is this part of the town was terrible. There were broken roofs and windows everywhere. He could still remember the day of the attack. There were dead bodies everywhere and Konoha had lost a great deal of strenght. How could all of this have happened? Konoha was known as the strongest hidden village, right? Then how could the sand and sound villages bring it down like that.

He just couldn't help but think that he was living in a foolish village. You couldn't trust anyone in this world. That was a fact and he was one of the people who knew that. Konoha shouldn't have trusted the sand village like that. He was betrayed in his past as well, so he had to learn this the hard way.

He felt something fall on his head. He sighed once again and looked up to see that it started raining. Just his luck. He quickly looked around and smirked when he saw his destination. "I know that I am going to regret this, but I don't want to get wet right now. And I had planned to go there sometime today anyway…"

He opened the door and headed inside. When he saw who was standing behind the counter, he immediately realised that he had made a mistake by coming here. Blonde hair, purple clothes, blue eyes. Putting his hands in his pocked, he waited for the scream that would absolutely follow…

The blonde girl standing behind the counter looked towards the entrance to see who had walked in. Her eyes widened and a smirk appeared on her face. Jumping over the counter, she ran towards the raven haired boy with a big smile on her face. "Sasuke-kun!" The girl immediately clung to his arm, not letting go.

Sasuke sighed and tried to get loose, although he knew that it wasn't going to be easy. "Hello, Ino. Could you let go of my arm, please. It's really irritating."

The blonde heard his words and sighed. He was just the same as always. She let go, but stayed really close to him. "You're no fun, Sasuke-kun!"

The boy was getting a bit annoyed and put on of his hands in his ear. "Could you pipe down for a moment. I just got out of the hospital, you know…"

Ino, realising that she was being loud, stuck out her tong and turned around. She walked back to the counter and leaned against it, facing the boy. "Yeah, I know, Sasuke-kun. I visited you every day, remember?"

Sasuke, thinking back, sighed. The girl had come to him every single day and he was sure that she had gotten even louder every day. She had tormented him with questions and hugs every day. "Oh yeah…I remember, alright…"

The girl giggled and sat down on the counter. "So why have you come here? I think that this is the first time I have seen you in a flower shop."

Sighing, the boy motioned to the door. Ino didn't get it at first, but when she saw the rain, she quickly caught on. "Oh, well it's not like I have any costumers at the moment. So feel stay as long as you like! I don't mind at all!"

'_I'm sure you don't…' _Sasuke thought while turning to the flowers next to him. Scanning the area, he found what he was looking for. Taking some white roses from one of the vases, he walked to the counter and laid the down.

Raising an eyebrow, Ino looked at the white flowers. "I thought that you were here for the rain, Sasuke-kun?"

The boy sighed and took some money out of his pocket. "I needed some flowers anyway, so I decided to buy them right now. It's not like I've got something better to do at the moment. He extended his hand with the money in it.

The blonde shook her head and sighed. "Well, then I won't stop you, Sasuke-kun! I am happy that you decided to buy some flowers. She accepted the money and put it away. Sasuke noticed that she had touched his hand longer than was necessary, but he just sighed. Somehow all the girls found him dashing and mysterious, although he still didn't know why. He just ignored all of them. Why couldn't they just get the picture and leave him alone?

He was broken out of his thoughts when he felt something on his arm. Looking down, he daw that Ino was touching him again. Quickly retreating his arm, he gave her a angry and confused look. "What's the deal?"

"I asked you something and you didn't answer. I thought that something was wrong. Sorry for caring!" The girl turned around with an angry look on her face.

Sasuke sighed for the thousandth time that day. It so wasn't his day. Putting one of his hands in his pocket, he looked towards the flowers. He couldn't take it to see another girl crying. Sakura had been more than enough for one day. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. What did you ask?"

The girl continued to make sobbing sounds. "I asked you if I had to put a note with the flowers!"

The Uchiha had done it now. The girl was screaming. That couldn't be a good sign. "No, I don't want a note. This is just fine. And could you please stop crying. I'm sorry, okay…"

When he heard that the girl continued to cry, he made his way over her and he put one of his hands on her shoulder. "Ino?"

He was surprised when the girl suddenly turned around and kissed him on the lips. This had never happened to him before. Okay one time, but he didn't want to count the time he had 'kissed' with Naruto. He quickly pushed her away from him with an angry look on his face. When he saw the smug look on her face, he realised that he had walked into a trap. "What was that all about!"

She gave the raven haired boy a smile, before answering: "Don't you like it when I kiss you, Sasuke-kun?" She tried to make her voice as cute as possible.

"Shut up. You're annoying!" Sasuke replied with anger in his voice. He grabbed the flowers and made his way towards the exit. The rain had stopped already, so this was the perfect time to leave.

She could see the red tint on his cheeks. The boy was actually caught off guard. She made the peace sign and grinned. She had actually kissed the boy everyone wanted to kiss. Oh, Sakura was so going to hate this.

Her smile was immediately replaced by a sad look. She knew that Sakura was in the hospital and although they weren't on the best terms at the moment, she still saw her as a good friend. "Sasuke-kun, wait!"

The boy grunted and stopped in the doorway. "What…."

Looking towards the ground, she took a few steps towards him. "How's Sakura? I haven't been able to go to her for some time now…"

Sasuke turned around, hearing her softened tone. The look in her eyes showed him that she was dead serious now. "She has actually woken up just a few hours ago."

Ino's eyes widened and she started jumping around. "Oh really, I am going to visit her right away!"

"But, she doesn't remember what happened. She's still in the phase of remembering everything." The Uchiha finished, while turning around again. He took a few steps, before he stopped again. "I think she would like it if you visited her." With those words he left.

Ino smiled at his last words. _'So he actually has a nice side too. This makes him even more likable. I can't wait to tell forehead about the kiss.' _

Sasuke walked through the market place with a confused look on his face. Had he just really said something nice to her. That couldn't be right. He had to be getting soft, too soft. He didn't like it at all. Looking up, he could see that there were still clouds. It could start raining again every moment now. "How troublesome."

He exited the market place and continued to walk towards the east side of the village. When he saw a bench on the side of the road, he sighed and walked over to it. He sat down and laid the flowers down next to him.

Looking up, he could see the stadium in which the chuunin exams were held. Memories of the fight against Gaara were flashing through his mind. How could he have lost against that monster? He thought that he had become very strong after training with Kakashi, but that Gaara bastard showed him that he was still a weakling. He was even able to withstand his chidori! If even that jutsu wasn't strong enough, then he would have to learn a even stronger one.

It was even worse that his team mates needed to save him from death. If he hated one thing, it was that. He didn't want to be protected. He needed to complete his goal on his own and he couldn't let anyone help him. His brother was the only thing that mattered. He closed his eyes and saw the face of the one who had killed his clan, the so called genius of the leaf village: Uchiha Itachi. His eyes shot open and the sharingan was activated. "I will kill you, Itachi!"

Getting angry, he fisted his hand and punched the ground in front of the bench. He hated it to be weak. He wanted power, no, he needed power. It was his only purpose in life. He couldn't get defeated by some sand ninja. In order to attain his goal, he needed to get one of the most powerful ninjas ever. And that's what he would do. He would become stronger than that bastard no matter what.

Standing up, he picked up the flowers and he started walking again. His mind wandered to a conversation he had overheard a few days ago.

_Sasuke was walking through the hospital with a frown on his face. He couldn't believe that the Gaara fellow had done so much damage to his body. Sighing, he continued to walk, until he heard a familiar voice behind one of the doors. It was none other than his own sensei. _

_The voice was muffled, so he walked towards the door and tried to listen. This usually wasn't his thing, but he had been out for quite a while, so he wanted to know what had happened while he wasn't there._

"_Yeah, I can't believe that the guy would actually return to the village after what he did. The nerve of that guy."_

_Sasuke didn't know for sure, but if he would have to guess, he would say that it was the sensei of Ino and her team. So there were two jounins?_

"_Don't worry. We will defeat him with the power of youth!" _

"_Shut up, Gai. You're annoying!"_

_When he heard the sound of someone falling on the ground, he smirked. The teacher of Kiba and his team, Kurenai was her name, must have hit that green spandex guy. He then became dead serious again. The senseis of all the genin teams he knew were there. Just what was going on? This could only mean that it was something important. _

_Looking inside, he could see that Kakashi was lying in the bed. The rest was standing somewhere in the room. Gai was currently on the ground with a black eye._

"_I can't believe he was actually able to beat you and Kurenai." Asuma said while looking towards the two._

_The woman sat down on the bed and sighed. "Even one of my most powerful genjutsu didn't have any effect on him. He just countered it…"_

_Kakashi sighed, before lying down again and closing his book. "He's become even stronger than when he left. This could become a real problem soon."_

_Sasuke couldn't believe what he was hearing. The jounins of the village had lost to some guy and he left, so does that mean that he is from this village? He was broken out of his thoughts when the blue beast decided to jump up. _

_Walking towards the bed, he gave the lazy jounin a thumbs up. "Don't worry, my rival. We've got a whole village with behind us and they didn't seem to want to kill us. And besides, we've got the power of youth!"_

_The grey haired jounin shook his head and sat up once again, placing the green book he was holding on the night desk next to him. "Gai, this is Uchiha Itachi we're talking about, you know."_

_Sasuke's eyes widened. They were talking about his brother! Anger took over and he activated his sharingan as if on instinct. He almost barged into the room, but he knew that that wouldn't be smart. Then he would never found out what had happened. Slightly calming himself, he continued to listen at the door. _

"_And then there is that guy he is travelling with, Hoshigaki Kisame. That fish guy is no pushover either. He's one of the seven shinobi swordsmen of the hidden mist village. He managed to overpower me with only the tip of his sword. That requires a lot of strength. We really need to be careful of these guys." Asuma replied while taking a cigarette out of his mouth._

_Kakashi bowed his head, before sighed once again. "His sharingan is to be feared. I couldn't even stop his genjutsu with my own sharingan. He has somehow evolved his sharingan into a even stronger version, the mangekyo sharingan."_

_Everyone stayed quiet for a while. Sasuke kept getting more angry by the minute. He had known about those eyes for a long time now. He has been the victim of them as well. And he knew that it wasn't pretty._

"_I just don't get one thing. The guy has massacred his whole clan without looking back, but yet he doesn't kill us, when he could easily do so. I don't get his motives." Kurenai said with a frown on her face._

"_I don't know his motives. All I know is that he's part of an organisation named Akatsuki. Not much is known about that organisation, but Jiraiya-sama told me that Orochimaru used to be a part of that organisation as well." Kakashi said frowning. _

_Sasuke's eyes widened once again. He immediately reached for his neck, where the curse seal was located. He could still remember how strong that guy was. The man had just played with Naruto and him in the forest of death that day and he could have easily killed them. And he has killed the hokage as well. _

_So Orochimaru had been in that organisation as well. Then it suddenly hit him. That guy had to know something about his brother. He needed to find that snake again and make him tell him about Itachi. _

_The curse seal suddenly started throbbing and he had to refrain himself from screaming out in pain. He could see that the marks were spreading over his body in a slow motion. Gathering all of his will power, he tried to get rid of the marks, but it didn't work. He buckled down to his knees and closed his eyes. He could hear the voice of the pale man in his head._

_You will seek me out for power_

_You will come to me, Sasuke-kun_

_Accept my gift to you and become stronger than everyone else_

_The pain slowly went away and the voice was gone. Cursing himself, he stood up again. This was starting to get more frequent since he woke up after the battle with the sand ninjas. The curse seal was getting stronger somehow and his desire to use the power was growing as well. But he knew that it wasn't right to use that power. He got a lot stronger, using that power, but it changed him as well. He couldn't control himself in the curse seal mode. _

_The information that his brother had come to the village had been stressing enough. He had missed his chance to kill him. But when he thought about it, if even Kakashi couldn't beat him, then how could he? He still wasn't strong enough. Shaking his head, he was about to walk to his room to rest when he heard his sensei speak again._

"_They were searching for Naruto…"_

_This made him stop in his tracks. They were searching for his team mate. This didn't make sense at all. He wanted to know more about this, but when he was about to walk back, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning around, he could see that it was one of the nurses. "What are you doing outside your bed, Sasuke-san. You are supposed to be asleep. Come with me."_

_He didn't even have a choice as he was dragged back to his bed. _

He still couldn't believe that his brother had returned. This brought back a lot of bad memories. And why would they be after Naruto? So many unanswered questions. He didn't like it one bit. He was the kind of guy who wanted to have control over everything.

Sighing, he realised that had reached his destination. He looked up in the sky and saw that it had started to rain once again. He didn't mind this time though. It fit his mood. He bent down and placed the white roses in front of the grey stone. He stood back up and closed his eyes. A small teardrop could be seen on his cheek. "It's been a while, mother, father…"

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Sakura was freaking out on her bed. Throwing away her pillow, she screamed out in anger. She hated to be like this. She had no idea what had happened to her team mate. The nurses who were treating her knew nothing about him. She was getting awfully depressed now.

Sasuke had left a long time ago now and she could feel the sadness getting even worse. Nobody had visited her since the boy had left. This was probably because she didn't have many friends and she still didn't know if her mother was back in the village as well. Sighing, she closed her eyes for a while. This was getting too much.

Looking in her left hand, she could see the forehead protector that she had found on the chair. Tears threatened to spill, when the door suddenly opened. "Naruto?!"

Looking towards the door, she could see that her blonde female friend entered the room with a bouquet of red roses and white lilies. Disappointed at first, she tried to smile for her friend. She was happy to see her friend, but she kind of hoped that it was her hyper little friend. "Hey, Ino-pig."

The blonde smiled before placing the flowers of the nightstand. Turning to the pink haired girl, she could see that she tried to smile, although it was very fake. "What's this about, forehead. I know that we're both blond, but I look nothing like that fool. I'm hurt."

She faked some tears to dramatize the effect. She then turned around again. "I'm going to put these flowers in some water."

"Very funny, Ino." Sakura replied with a sad look on her face.

Both girls stayed quiet for a little while. Ino couldn't take it anymore and she let out a deep sigh. "So, I heard that you woke up today. So how's it going?"

Sakura closed her eyes and sat up in her bed. "To tell you the truth, it's not going too well. I'm still kind of confused at the moment." She was thinking about asking the girl about Naruto. Maybe she would know something.

"Sasuke-kun told me that you were having difficulty remembering some things…" Ino said whilst putting a rose in the vase.

Sakura was snapped out of her thoughts and she sighed. "I had hit my head on a rock while fighting and it made if difficult to remember some things. But I remember everything now. From the time I woke up until when I was knocked out."

This made her think about her team mate again and this time she couldn't hold back the tears. She lowered her face and started sobbing. She had finally become a friend with Naruto and then this happened. Just why was fate so cruel.

Ino, who was busy putting the flowers in a vase, heard it and turned around. When she saw that the pink haired girl was crying softly, she dropped the flower she was holding and then rushed towards her friend. When she reached her, she embraced the girl and she was more than surprised when Sakura buried her head in her shirt.

"Why?" Sakura nearly yelled.

Ino's shirt was getting soaked and she wasn't used to seeing her pink haired friend like that. Was it something she said? She continued to hold her and then started rubbing her back with her right hand. She had to be careful to not pull out the wires that were attached to her though. "What's wrong, Sakura?"

"Na…Naruto…" Sakura managed to call out between sobs.

This caused the blonde to raise an eyebrow. "What's wrong with Naruto?"

Ino was surprised when the pink haired girl raised her head to look her in the eyes. Ino could see the red eyes and puffy cheeks and it was just horrible to see her friend like that. "Naruto…what happened to Naruto?"

Ino gave the pink haired girl a sad look before answering. "I'm sorry, but I don't know, Sakura. I haven't seen or heard from him since the attack. I have been too busy with other things. I have seen Sasuke-kun though!"

This caused Sakura to frown. "Oh…"

Now Ino knew that it was really serious. Her pink haired friend didn't flip out after hearing the Uchiha's name. "But you were with him at the day of the attack right?" Ino asked with confusion written all over her face. Somehow she had a bad feeling.

"I think that you could better sit down for this, Ino…" Sakura said while getting ready for her story.

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Sasuke sighed before sitting down on the wet grass. He couldn't believe that he had actually returned to this place. He hated it like no other place. This is the place where he had spent the most of his days after the massacre of his clan. "I just came here to tell you that I am really missing the both of you."

It's true. Not a day went by without thinking about his mother and father. Even now the death of his folks came to his mind every single moment. He could still see his brother kill them in front of his eyes. Memories of the days with his family came back to him as he closed his eyes. Grabbing a fist full of grass, he threw the green stuff in the air. "Damn you, Itachi!"

_Sasuke walked towards his home with a big smile plastered on his face. He was holding a big piece of paper in his hands. It were his grades for the first period of his time in the ninja academy. "I can't wait to show this to mom and dad. Hopefully they will become proud of me, just like they are of my brother."_

_He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't see the boy in front of him. He looked up until it was too late. The two boys collided and Sasuke fell on his behind. Looking to the other person, he could see that it the boy who was always pulling of pranks around the village. Standing up, he sighed, before offering his hand to help the kid up. "Are you okay?"_

_The blond boy smiled before taking the hand. "I'm fine, thank you!"_

_The first thing Sasuke did was putting his fingers in his ears. The kid could sure be loud. "Could you please talk and don't shout. I want to be able to use my ears for a long time, you know?"_

_He could see that the boy scratched the back of his head. "Sure, anyways, I'm Uzumaki Naruto. Nice to meet you! What's your name?"_

_Sasuke sighed. He really had no time for this. He just wanted to get home now. "I'm Uchiha Sasuke. Nice to meet you too."_

_He was about to leave, when the boy grabbed the piece of paper from his hand. "Hey! Give that back!"_

_The boy scanned the paper like his life depended on it. "Wow, so you are in the ninja academy as well! And you've got nice grades too!"_

_Sasuke grabbed the piece of paper before shrugging. "I'm aiming to become the greatest ninja in the world, so of course I've got high grades." Sasuke said while smirking. That was indeed one of his goals. He just wanted to be noticed by his parents and brother as well._

_This seemed to confused the boy a lot. "Well, I want to become the greatest ninja too, so why don't I have high grades?!"_

"_Well, maybe you don't study enough." Sasuke said with a smile on his face. _

_Naruto turned to the boy with a confused look on his face. "Study…what's that?"_

_Sasuke sweat dropped before walking past the boy. "If you want to become better than me, then you have to study. But you can try what you want, you'll never be stronger than me, because I will become the strongest! But I have to go now. Good luck with studying."_

_The raven haired boy walked past Naruto. He could hear the boy mumble something, but he didn't pay attention to it. That boy would never become as strong as him. This was something he knew for sure. _

_He smiled when he finally reached his destination: the Uchiha compound. Walking through the streets, he could see all the people of his clan. He was so proud of his clan members. Most of them were great ninjas and they were well-known throughout the world. He couldn't wait to become part of the police, which was created by the Uchiha clan. _

_He reached his house and quickly opened the door. "Mom, I'm home!"_

"_I'm in the kitchen, dear!" The woman shouted back._

_The raven haired boy undid his shoes and walked towards the kitchen with a huge smile on his face. When he saw his mother at the sink, his smile became even bigger. "Look mom, I've got my grades for the academy!"_

_The black haired woman turned around with a smile on her face. She walked over to him with a wet tissue. Sasuke was confused, when she suddenly started to wipe his face. "Your face was a bit dirty, dear."_

"_Mom!" Sasuke said embarrassed. _

_The woman smiled, before taking the piece of paper in her hands. "Now let's see how my little boy did."_

"_I'm not little. I'm bigger than most kids in my class!" Sasuke replied with a confident smirk on his face._

_Laughing, his mother patted him on his head. "I know, dear. But you'll always be my little boy. Your grades are excellent, Sasuke. You really are as good as your brother. I think that your father will be proud as well."_

_Just at that moment, Sasuke's father decided to enter the room. "I'm home, dear. It was pretty slow on work today, so they gave me rest of the day off. So has anyone seen Itachi around? I wanted to ask him something."_

_The man then looked towards his wife and saw that Sasuke was standing next to her. "Good day, Sasuke. How was school?"_

_Sasuke smiled, before grabbing the piece of paper and giving it to his father. "School was boring and easy, just like always. But I've got my grades today. Here, take a look, father."_

_The raven haired boy became nervous. His father's acknowledgment meant a lot to him. When he saw that his father looked towards him with a frown on his face, he started to blush. It looked like he wasn't too happy, but he hadn't seen his father happy in his life very often. "Great job, Sasuke. I think that you are going to become a great ninja, just like your brother."_

_His smile became very big at the moment and he couldn't help but feel happy. His father had told him that he would become as great as his brother. And his brother was the strongest one of the Uchiha clan at the moment. There were even rumours going on that Itachi was one of the strongest men from the entire village and that he might become the next hokage. _

_He turned to his father with a smile on his face. "Thank you father."_

"_Make me proud, Sasuke. I know that you will."_

"_I'll make you proud of me, father, I promise!"_

Tears were visible in his eyes now as he slowly stood up. He hasn't made his father proud, he has made nobody proud. All he did his entire life was run, hide and cry. And even ran when he could have tried to stop his brother from killing all of those people.

The raven haired boy clenched his fist, before taking one of the white flowers with him. He stood up and looked up to the sky. There were dark clouds everywhere and he could see the rain coming down on him. "Damn you, Itachi. I will kill you, you hear me!"

The curse seal started to play up again, but he quickly calmed himself down to make it go away again. The curse seal fed off his anger and hate, so he had to make sure to stay calm.

He started to walk away, but not until he glanced over his shoulder for one last time. "I will make you proud of me, mother and father. I will avenge you, even if it is the last thing I do!"

He started walking again with the white flower in his hand. Seeing his parents' graves was a bit weird, but he was happy that he had decided to go. It had made his mind clear again. He was an avenger and he would go on until he had fulfilled his goal. Even if he wasn't strong enough now, he would find a way to become stronger. He didn't matter how he would do it, just as long as he could become stronger than HIM.

He didn't know if he could handle even more sadness today, but he felt like he had to do this today as well. There were graves everywhere, because every ninja that had died lied here. He didn't have to go far to reach his destination though. Reaching the centre of the huge place, he sighed. He stayed quiet for a while, before placing the flower on the ground in front of another big grey stone. Looking towards the stone, he became sad when he read the name.

"Hey, Naruto…"

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**AN: **Cliffhanger!

I'm finally back with a new chapter. Sorry for not updating so long, guys! You can scream to me, hit me, flame me. Do with me what you want. XD I will now try to write every day again. Expect one update per week at least. Not much happened here, but I hope that you liked it anyway. This was Sasuke's chapter and it explained a bit why he is the way he is. And you can see that I have changed what happened a bit. I hope that you like it.

This is the chapter length I am aiming for. 4000-5000 words.

All of this is just the first ark of my story and it will be a big one. It will get better after the time skip.

As for the pairings It will be:  
NaruSaku  
InoChou  
NejiTen --> although I am a LeeTen fan :P  
KibaHina  
ShikaTema

And please let me know how I am doing. You can flame me as well or just tell me to say it is good or bad. But please leave a review. It keeps me motivated to update sooner. I know that it might seem corny, but it's the truth XD


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